Community Policing and Violence Prevention in Oakland

In response to rising crime and violence, Oakland voters passed Measure Y, the Violence Prevention and Public Safety Act of 2004, a 10-year initiative designed to facilitate community policing, foster violence prevention, and improve fire and paramedic service. This report assesses the progress of the community-policing and violence-prevention components of Measure Y. Not enough time has passed since the implementation of Measure Y to comprehensively assess its impact, so the report focuses primarily on the process of implementation. Subsequent evaluations will focus on the impact of Measure Y, community policing in Oakland, and the violence prevention programs funded by Measure Y. The early evidence on the implementation of the Measure Y community-policing program is not altogether positive. Deployment of problem-solving officers, which is the cornerstone of the community-policing initiative, has been delayed because of a lack of available officers, and community participation has been inadequate. The violence-prevention programs have generally been implemented according to plan, albeit in some cases with expected start-up delays. For the most part, those programs appear to be providing the services they are intended to provide. Based on these early findings and analyses, recommendations are made for improving the Measure Y programs and the city’s oversight of them.