In the 1990s, the California Health Care Foundation, on Webster Street, commissioned me to write a study about anti-violence programs in Oakland. These were programs, then novel, in which the City funded private, non-profit entities to work with youth convicted of crimes, in an attempt to turn their lives around. (The youth, all under 18, were incarcerated at an Alameda County-run camp in the hills near Lake Chabot.)
Theoretically, the programs worked like this: a City board linked to the City Council would select non-profits, which then received funding, mainly through philanthropic grants. The non-profits in turn were supposed to keep records of their achievements. It all sounded good on paper. The problem, as I soon discovered, was that below the surface everything was a mess. The “records” turned over to the City were jokes: program supervisors just made up numbers. There was no longterm followup; nobody had any idea whether anything actually worked. There were secret arrangements between funders, on the one hand, and non-profit administrators, on the other, in which it appeared that favors were going back and forth between them, in a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” deal. I strongly suspected, although I never personally witnessed, drug dealing between the young counselors and the kids they were supposed to be working with.
This experience left a bitter taste in my mouth. It was my first exposure to waste, fraud and abuse in government. Ever since, whenever I hear about anti-violence programs in Oakland, a red flag goes off for me. And so it was from the moment I heard about Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention (DVP).
Here we go again, I thought.
Now, we’re learning what a fiasco DVP is. It’s not considered polite to criticize DVP or its leadership. If you do, you risk people accusing you of being pro-violence. Of course, everyone wants to reduce violence in Oakland. The question is, How? As readers of this blog know, I’ve long been wary about the “root causes of crime” theory that says that we need to solve poverty and all the issues arising from it, before we can get a grip on crime. I simply don’t believe that. No one is ever going to end poverty. “The poor you will always have with you,” Jesus said, and he was right: no “program” on Earth, no amount of “investment” can end poverty, if individuals are unwilling to work hard and be moral. But there’s no proof that poverty, in itself, causes people to commit crimes. People choose to be criminals.
So I admit to being pessimistic about DVP. It may work; I very much hope it does; we need to end the current cycle of violence. Once the pandemic is over and things get back to normal, DVP may turn out to be the game-changer its framers tell us it could be. But right now, things don’t look so good. Even the most radical City Council members—Bas, Fife, Thao and Kaplan—are turning against DVP’s leadership, and they’re the ones you’d think would be most supportive. After all, they wanted to defund the Oakland Police Department and hand the money over to DVP.
Well, how about defunding a flailing DVP and giving the money back to OPD? Let’s start that conversation. And while we’re at it, let’s have a complete, thorough, honest and transparent investigation of DVP. Does anyone really know what’s going on there? Is there any accountability at all for the millions and millions of dollars they’re spending? Does the City Council have the slightest clue? Let’s get people under oath and demand answers. The public deserves to know.
Steve Heimoff