City of Oakland California

The City of Oakland is seeking input from neighbors across the city on public safety priorities to incorporate into a comprehensive crime reduction and suppression strategic plan. These town hall meetings will be led by the renowned consulting team, Strategic Policy Partnership and are structured as a conversation between Neighbors and City Leaders including Mayor Jean Quan, City Administrator Deanna J. Santana, City Councilmembers, Police Command staff and members of the OPD Command Staff.

Click here to view the Presentation by Strategic Policy Partnership.

Click here to view the flyer for the Youth Forum on May 9.

To view the flyer on the town hall meetings in English, Español and, please click here.

Every meeting is open to all members of our community, regardless of your neighborhood’s location. No R.S.V.P. required.

To request interpretation services in other languages, please contact Silvia San Miguel, at least five days prior to the meeting date, at (510) 238-6448 or ssanmiguel@oaklandnet.com.

For more information on the Public Safety Community Meetings, please contact Joe DeVries, Neighborhood Services Supervisor, at (510) 238-3083 at jdevries@oaklandnet.com.

The City of Oakland is asking for input as we engage in a holistic public safety strategy effort. Public safety is our number one priority, but it's not just about law enforcement. We must address the root causes of crime and violence. We all want safe streets, but how do we work as a community to proactively address crime, gangs, graffiti, blight and quality-of-life issues in Oakland?

Visit www.engageoakland.com to submit suggestions, ideas and comments on how to improve public safety in Oakland or email your ideas to fightcrime@oaklandnet.com.

We are working with the nation’s best minds in policing, with proven track records in achieving major reductions in crime. Our focus is how to most efficiently deploy our limited resources for maximum impact. The City has engaged the renowned consulting team, Strategic Policy Partnership, to assist with strategic planning to reduce crime in Oakland.

Strategic Planning:

• Developing a short-term strategy to have an immediate, high impact on crime trends.
• Developing a sustainable, long-term citywide crime reduction strategy.

Bratton Group Report

• Executive Summary of Findings & Recommendations by the Bratton Group, May 9, 2013.
• The Bratton Group Report: District Based Investigations in Oakland, May 2013

To learn more about the contract with Strategic Policy Partnership, click here to read the media release.

To gather community input as the two strategies are developed, the City of Oakland is hosting a series of public safety town hall meetings. To learn more about the meetings, click here to view the flyer in English, Spanish and Chinese.

To view the staff report, Council Resolution and video of the January 22, 2013, Council meeting, please click here.

Improving data systems around crime tracking, data-driven deployment and accountability (CompStat).  OPD needs page on CompStat. Are the meetings open to the public?

If you’d like to view current and historic crime statistics for Oakland, please visit OPD’s crime statistics web page at http://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/OPD/s/Statistics/index.htm.

To create your own reports, graphs and maps using public data, please visit https://data.oaklandnet.com.

New neighborhood policing model:

• Will break the city into five areas, each led by a Captain accessible to the community.
• Will begin in East Oakland and then expand to the rest of the city.
• Provides for geographically accountable police managers and officers linked to the expanded CompStat datatracking model.
• Will focus on policing smaller geographic regions and dealing with different crime trends in different parts of Oakland.
• Will help us enhance and strengthen community policing and officer accountability throughout the City.

To learn more about new geographic policing initiative, click here to read the January 11th issue of the City Administrator’s Weekly Report.

State and Federal partnerships--Strengthened collaboration with law enforcement partners at county, state and federal level to combat gun violence.

Ceasefire--Nationally recognized best practice that has reduced shootings and homicides in Boston and elsewhere.

• Targets the groups/gangs responsible for the most violence in the most troubled neighborhoods. Ceasefire was launched in East Oakland in October 2012.
• Leverages partnerships with the community; violence prevention service providers; and county, state, and federal law enforcement partners (Boost the federal partners part!)
• Goals are to:
  1. Reduce shootings and homicides through respectful direct communication and followthrough with those at highest risk of violence;
  2. Decrease recidivism and incarceration rates of individuals participating in the intervention;
  3. Provides support for those seeking alternatives OR more supervision and attention to those who continue violent behavior as in the recent gang arrests.

To learn more about Ceasefire in Oakland, click here to visit the web page on Ceasefire. Click here to read the media release about the launch of Ceasefire in Oakland.

Rebuilding OPD is a top priority. Despite the recession, we reorganized services and negotiated pensions payments to bring back laid off officers. We won one of the largest federal grants in the nation to hire 25 more.

We have invested much of the new income of our growing economy into three police academies this year, which will graduate about 120 new officers.

We are adding walking officers in commercial districts.

Immediate extra help—In the meantime, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and Alameda County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) are providing supplemental support on week nights and weekends.

• Click here to read the January 2, 2013, Information Memo on the impact of CHP’s assistance in Oakland. 
• To view the staff report, Council Resolution and video of the February 19, 2013, Council meeting about crime suppression assistance from CHP, please click here. 
• To view the staff report, Council Resolution and video of the January 22, 2013, Council meeting about crime suppression assistance from ACSO, please click here.

Hiring civilians—20 police service technicians to free up officers so they can leave desk jobs and help patrol our streets, and 1 fingerprint examiner .

Attracting officers that mirror our community—more local residents and women, more people of color, more bilingual trainees, higher education attainment--through changes to our recruitment process. To ensure new offices are equipped to engage in effective urban policing, the new recruitment age will be changed from 21 to 25 years old, except for candidates who have a four-year college degree and those who have served honorably in the Armed Forces. We'll also seek applicants who have substantial experience in an urban environment and provide a broader range of advance training to promote problem solving and analytical skills. To build and strengthen relationshipss during training, new officers will be assigned to community organizations that fall in the beat they will serve in during their first year.

Interested in joining OPD? Learn more about recruitment efforts by visiting http://www.opdjobs.com/recruiting-unit.asp or call 1-888-OPD-JOBS (1-888-673-5627).

To view the staff reports and Council Resolution authorizing the third police academy and a video of the meeting on January 22, 2013, please click here.

It’s not enough to tackle crime from the enforcement side alone. Violence prevention programs have provided critical intervention before problems escalate into more violence, and provide young people with the support, tools, training, and advocacy they need to keep them out of harm’s way.

• Street outreach teams play a pivotal role in decreasing retaliatory shootings and violence. Click here to learn more.
• Crisis intervention and legal services are available for victims of family violence or sexual exploitation. Click here to learn more.
• Juvenile Justice Center Wrap Around focuses on helping youth who are leaving juvenile detention get back to school as quickly as possible; provides mentoring and advocacy to support that transition. Click here to learn more about wraparound services.  
• Afterschool and summer employment programs help high-risk youth acquire skills and make a small income. We are striving to provide 2,000 youth jobs this summer. Click here to learn about youth employment options from Oakland Unite. Click here to learn about summer employment with the Mayor’s Summer Job Program: Click here to learn about Youth Services from through the Workforce Investment Board. Click here to learn about Parks and Recreation afterschool programs at Recreation Centers. 
• Gang prevention program provides services and case management to gang-involved youth at Oakland public alternative schools and parent education classes to school parents. Click here to learn more.
• Trained personnel conduct outreach and provide services to the most at-risk youth and young adults, who are most likely to be victims and/or perpetrators of violence, and their families. These services are provided in coordination with Oakland Police Department in order to maximize impact. Click here to learn more.
• Provide employment skills and job readiness training and employment placement for young adults on parole or probation who are returing to Oakland. Click here to learn more. 

Accelerate reforms. We are working to accelerate police reforms and ensure full compliance with the Negotiated Settlement Agreement that arose from the Riders police misconduct case almost ten years ago.

Enhanced oversight. On March 6, 2013, a Federal judge honored the City’s request for enhanced oversight coupled with additional support to accelerate and achieve reforms in the coming year. Appointed to the job was Tom Frazier, a renowned policing expert who successfully and recently worked with the City to make important improvements to our police department.

Strengthen community relations. An important aspect of the reform process is to strengthen the relationship between OPD and the community we serve. Street outreach teams play a pivotal role in decreasing retaliatory shootings and violence.

Click here to read a fact sheet on the Negotiated Settlement Agreement.

To learn more about the Negotiated Settlement Agreement, click here to visit OPD’s web page on the NSA.  

Turning the corner on our public safety challenges will require a collective effort; we must work together to change the patterns of violence in our community.

Here are a few ways you can get involved:

• Join Neighborhood Watch--Neighborhood Watch is a partnership between neighbors and the Oakland Police Department to improve safety and prevent crime. Forming a Neighborhood Watch group on your block is the first step to making and keeping your neighborhood safe. For more information including details on the Neighborhood Watch Steering Committees, click here to visit our Neighborhood Watch page. For more information, contact Felicia Verdin at (510) 238-3128 or FVerdin@oaklandnet.com.
• Join Merchant Watch--Merchants actively participate in cooperation with law enforcement to reduce crime in their business corridors. You may hear this program called Merchant Watch, Business Alert, or Business Watch. But the idea is the same: Merchants looking out for each other. For more information, click here to visit our Merchant Watch page.
• Join a Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council (NCPC). Please click here to locate your NCPC and identify your Neighborhood Services Coordinator.
• Participate in Night Walks in the Ceasefire target area in East Oakland. Community members are trained to engage the community and walk every Friday. For more information, contact Jennifer Argueta at JArgueta@oaklandnet.com or Reverend Damita Davis-Howard at willsflwr@aol.com.
• Be a part of the conversation. Visit www.EngageOakland.com to share your thoughts, suggestions and concerns or email them to FightCrime@oaklandnet.com.
• Attend a meeting of the Citizens Police Review Board (CPRB) which provides the community with a public forum to air its concerns on policy matters and individual cases alleging police misconduct. Click here to learn more about the CPRB.
• Attend a meeting of the Community Policing Advisory Board (CPAB) which oversees and ensures the successful implementation of Oakland's community policing policy. The CPAB meets the first Wednesday of every month. Click here to learn more about the CPAB.
• Attend a meeting of the Neighborhood Watch Steering Committees (NWSC) which works with staff to strengthen and build the Neighborhood Watch Program. The NWSC meets on the 4th Wednesday of most months at 6:30pm. Click here to learn more about the NWSC. call Felicia Verdin at (510) 238-3128 or email: fverdin@oaklandnet.com.

• Attend a Measure Y Oversight Committee meeting. This committee oversees the performance of all Measure Y programs and services and makes policy recommendations to the Mayor and City Council. Click here to learn more about the Measure Y Oversight Committee.

In the event of an emergency, dial 911 or 777-3211 from a cell phone.

There are four ways to send an anonymous tip to OPD:

1. Text TIP OAKLANDPD to 888777 from your cell phone
2. Call our toll-free tipping hotline at 855-TIPS-247 (855-847-7247)
3. Respond to OPD's Nixle messages
4. Visit http://bit.ly/PFxk7D for an online Tip Form

File a Police Report. Click here to use the online reporting function and follow the online instructions. As detailed on the first page of the online form, certain types of crime may not be reported through this system.

Sign up for text and/or email alerts from OPD through Nixle: http://nixle.us/register/

Sign up for Emergency Alerts for residents: http://bit.ly/VpsuyK

Connect with your neighborhood’s Problem Solving Officer (PSO). Click here to locate your PSO.

9-1-1 Registry--Allows older adults and people with disabilities to voluntarily provide information about their health and medical needs to the City.

Presentations and Home Security Surveys are some of the Crime Prevention Education resources offered. Click here to learn more.

Our service partners at Oakland Unite also provide a variety of crime prevention tips and training. 

Citizens’ of Oakland Respond to Emergencies (CORE)
Free training teaches self-reliance skills and helps neighborhoods establish response teams to take care of the neighborhood until professional emergency personnel arrive.

Top 10 Things You Can Do to Prepare for a Disaster

Emergency Preparedness Tips
Basic tips to keep you and your family safe.

Basic Emergency Preparedness Training
On-line training course.

Functional Needs Annex
Oakland's model plan for disability access to disaster readiness activities. For more information go to the ADA Programs Division page.

9-1-1 Registry
Allows older adults and people with disabilities to voluntarily provide information about their health and medical needs to the City.