OAKLAND IS REimagining PUBLIC SAFETY
Version 2.0
The Defund Police Coalition Responds To Reimagining Public Safety Task Force Final Recommendations
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On Friday, February 12th, 2021, Oakland’s Reimagining Public Safety Task Force issued their first round of draft recommendations that will forge a new path toward holistic and community driven public safety practices and policies in Oakland. Within 48 hours, The Defund Police Coalition released the first version of this report. Following a discussion and revision process, the Task Force’s Advisory Boards released their second — and final — round of recommendations on March 1, 2021. These recommendations will now be deliberated by the 17-member Task Force composed of City Council, City Commissions, and Mayoral appointees on March 10th and March 17th. Members of the public still have opportunities to weigh in, including at the final Task Force meetings and until the report is submitted to City Council on April 1st.
The revised recommendations include 10 new recommendations, the merging of 47 pre-existing recommendations, 44 amended recommendations, and three new supplemental reports. The Defund Police Coalition has updated its remarks and recommendations based on these latest revisions. We have also noted whether a recommendation has been withdrawn, merged, amended or was new. We left all of our previous commentary as we feel that the analysis about these elements of policing remains useful to the public, elected officials, and media. This report breaks down all the recommendations we support, the ones we don’t, and why. We also look at potential revenue streams to pay for these shifts in practice and new community safety programs, analyze OPD calls for service data in a brand new APTP report, and highlight work already happening at the grassroots level that needs more investment. Such community programs are already keeping us safe — which is no surprise because #WeKeepUsSafe and #WeTakeCareOfUs.
HOW DID WE GET HERE: THE HISTORY OF REIMAGINING AND DEFUND
Though this political moment was born of great tragedy, struggle and sacrifice, there is power in the now to extract real wins for the people that will quantitatively shift the quality of our lives and the future of our children. The Oakland Reimagining Public Safety Task Force was created in direct response to significant local demand to redirect monies from the Oakland Police Department to programs, support services, and resources that take a holistic view of public safety and focus on addressing the root causes of so-called “crime” rather than relying on militarized policing and a violent and cyclical carceral state.
This demand to defund police and invest in community grew in response to the nationwide uprisings last summer when, across the globe, tens of thousands of people came together to demand an immediate and final end to state terror and violence. The people of Oakland, in the flats and in the hills, have demonstrated a commitment to investing in services that will actually protect communities as opposed to exacerbating harm. The Task Force recommendations are an important first step in achieving that goal.
The Defund OPD campaign was launched by the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) five years ago. It has since evolved into a coalition comprised of 13 BIPOC-led grassroots organizations* with decades-long roots in Oakland and tens of thousands of active members amongst them.
Task Force Advisory Board members dedicated thousands of collective hours to develop these recommendations. These volunteers offered their time, energy, passion, innovation, care, and commitment to push Oakland into the 21st century as it relates to public safety and how Oaklanders, specifically BIPOC Oaklanders, are seen and treated by the entity whose motto it is to protect and serve while we simultaneously work to dismantle and replace that institution with something more just, equitable and humane.
THIS POLITICAL MOMENT: THE TIME FOR EXTRACTION
The Defund Coalition is excited about this powerful, political moment. This updated report responds to each of what are now 102 recommendations and three supplemental reports issued in this latest round of Advisory Board Recommendations.
After five years of organizing, the voices of Oaklanders are finally being heard.
This moment matters not just for Oakland, but for the country as a whole. For well over a decade, Oakland has been America’s vanguard for criminal “justice” reform and as we go, so does the nation. APTP and the Defund Police Coalition receive weekly calls and emails from organizers in cities across the country for consultation and guidance. Lives saved in Oakland means lives saved across the nation.
This conversation could not be happening at a more crucial time. In 2020, and continuing into 2021, Oakland, along with the rest of America, has seen massive spikes in violent crime. We are losing our loved ones at an alarming rate. While the Oakland Police Department placed the blame on our Black children, the responsibility lies squarely at the feet of the Libby Schaaf administration. For six years, she has neglected the Black community. While she “developed” Oakland, she displaced Black Oaklanders. Her policies have pushed Black people out of their homes, into the streets and the underground economy. We are sicker and poorer. More angry, tired, frustrated and afraid. THIS is what we mean when we say “all violence is state violence”. It is the state that creates the conditions under which these tragic realities play out. Some people point to this painful period of time and say this is why we can't defund police. This is faulty logic. Law enforcement has the money NOW. And our people continue to die NOW. Police are violence responders. Not violence interrupters. We need to invest in root cause preventive strategies. We need to get to the gun before the bullet flies, not watch yet another mother put her child in the ground. We need to REfund. REstore. And REimagine.
“For well over a decade, Oakland has been America’s vanguard for criminal justice reform and as we go, so does the nation. APTP and the Defund Coalition receive weekly calls and emails from organizers in cities across the country for consultation and guidance. Lives saved in Oakland means lives saved across the nation.”
DEFUND POLICE COALITION VALUES & PRINCIPLES
Imagination and Visioning: We can create safer communities if we are willing to have an openness to imagine and the financial investment to match. Let us come with open hearts, eyes, and ears and with an orientation towards openness and possibility. Let us invest as aggressively in proven, community-based alternatives as we have in punitive and violent policing and incarceration.
Reinvestment and Restoration: Recommendations must center replenishing our communities with what was stolen with the advent of the “war on drugs” and remains missing as Oakland “develops”: safe housing; access to clean water, air, and adequate food; health care; education; jobs; and mental health support. The data show these are the things that lead to increased safety, decreased violence, healthy families, and whole communities.
Racial Equity: It is our moral duty to center the people and communities most impacted by the lack of housing, economic stability, support services, over-policing, intercommunal violence and the carceral state in all public dialogues, debates, listening sessions and recommendations for adoption by the City Council.
Accountability: This body must be rooted in qualitative and quantitative data that may challenge personal opinions but ultimately lead us closer to the goals and mission of the Task Force. These data should be mined from honest opinions and feedback from communities most impacted by policing and violence, research, polling, expert testimony, and more. Task Force members must hold each other accountable for principled engagement both within and outside of the confines of Task Force meetings and move as a collective unit not individuals with personal agendas.
Expertise: Oakland is rich with some of the nation’s leading experts: particularly Black women, men and TGNC (transgender and gender non-conforming) people and other disenfranchised people of color. These people and organizations should be tapped for solutions, support, and services outside of formal/traditional government services, programs and ideology.
Data Driven and Fact Based: While all members of the Task Force should support and believe in the mandate of the Task Force, we recognize some are still challenged — and even fearful — of moving Oakland into a new and more effective paradigm. Service on this Task Force must be rooted in a commitment to invest in research, evaluate OPD’s current programs and strategies, push back on false narratives, provide data-driven recommendations in service of the Task Force’s mandate, and collectively and fearlessly dream big in partnership with Oaklanders toward a new system of public safety rooted in justice, healing and humanity.
REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS Analysis
We deeply appreciate the work of all the Advisory Board members and, as the co-creators of this process, we are clear that the purpose of the Task Force was not to strengthen, fix, reform, or rebrand the Oakland Police Department (OPD). Both Oakland and the nation have invested untold resources to “fix” policing. We have seen this with attempts at training on implicit and explicit bias, body camera mandates, and policy shifts regarding Use of Force requirements toward “less lethal” weapons; weapons that permanently disabled and killed hundreds of Americans during the 2020 summer uprisings. You cannot fix something that is not broken. Police and policing in this country was born out of the slave trade, the genocide of Indigenous bodies, and the suppression of workers. Their job then was to protect an economic system dependent on the slave labor of Black and Brown people and to uphold the tenets of white supremacy that are the foundation of this country. They continue to do their job. We remain concerned, that even with amendments, there are almost 30 recommendations in the OPD ORGANIZATION AND CULTURE SECTION. As history and recent events continue to make painfully clear, a “culture shift” is not what is required. That said, there are several forward-thinking recommendations in this section that we have highlighted and strongly support.
The only rational way forward is to actively divest from policing and invest in the programs and services that are proven to support communities and increase safety. We urge City Council to place less emphasis on the recommendations in this section and prioritize focus on BUDGET AND DATA, and ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMS, RESPONSES AND INVESTMENTS.