When Chief LeRonne Armstrong told me OPD needs at least 1,100 cops to keep Oakland safe, I asked him to put me in touch with someone who could explain the rationale for that number. He connected me with Assistant Chief of Police Darren Allison, who kindly provided me with reference materials. Here’s what I learned.
In 2013—nine years ago—the city of Oakland commissioned an external consulting firm, Strategic Policy Partnership (SPP), to study improving public safety in Oakland. The years 2011-2013 had been horrible ones for crime in Oakland; “Oakland’s murder rate…was the highest in [Alameda] county, accounting for four of every five murders in the county,” according to FBI statistics at that time. Shocked city leaders felt compelled to do something about it.
SPP’s resulting report formed the basis for subsequent estimates of the number of sworn officers OPD needs. Then-City Manager Deanna Santana, in a Jan. 3, 2014 memo, transmitted SPP’s report to then-Mayor Jean Quan and the City Council.
Santana’s memo, together with SPP’s report, was a deep dive (35 pages, 10,500 words) into what SPP termed “Zeroing Out Crime: A Strategy for Total Community Action.” It makes curious, familiar, and sad reading today; not much has changed. SPP both analyzed the situation in Oakland regarding crime and came up with policy recommendations to tackle it.
Here are the report’s key points:
It acknowledged that “Oakland currently is a community plagued by an unacceptable level of violent and non-violent crime.” It recognized that there existed a great deal of mistrust of the police in certain Oakland communities. “There were years… when police actions were offensive to a number of residents in the community…Now, although major improvements have been made and others are underway, it will be difficult to change those perceptions, which sometimes take on a life of their own and become a part of the oral history passed from generation to generation.” (This is precisely what we’re seeing in the hysterical myths about police brutality spread by certain “residents in the community” who benefit politically and perhaps financially from public mistrust of cops.)
More optimistically, the report referred to “the tipping point,” the highly anticipated diminution of crime in Oakland. “If the [recommended] steps taken are successful as they were in crime-ridden New York and Los Angeles, there will come a time when the norm suddenly changes from one where disorder and violent crime rules to one in which community safety and an absence of violent crime and disorder rules.”
SPP’S RECOMMENDATIONS
The SPP report contained clear, explicit suggestions for making Oakland safer. Among these were a strong recommendation that the Oakland Police Department “should communicate regularly using a variety of methods with the community [through] social media, the Department’s website, traditional media and email blasts.” SPP recognized that only with the public’s support could OPD succeed in doing its job; and that support depended on the department’s willingness and ability to communicate. We, the Coalition, have repeatedly urged OPD to do this. Sadly, the department has been lackluster in engaging the community in dialogue of the kind SPP suggested. This, in my opinion, is because of OPD’s fear of antagonizing Robert Warshaw, who essentially controls OPD’s fate through his overlordship of the Negotiated Settlement Agreement. There is a belief within OPD leadership that Warshaw would react negatively to any effort by the department to shift public opinion. Along these lines, it’s worth noting that later today, Tuesday, Jan. 18, the City Council will vote on a Kaplan-Fife proposal to defund and thus weaken OPD’s Public Information Office, which will make communication with the public even more difficult.
Another SPP recommendation was to Obtain a Commitment from City Government Officials (Elected and Appointed) that reducing crime is the number one priority for action. Readers should know that the capital letters, bold-face type and underlining were contained in SPP’s original, indicating the importance they placed on this recommendation. We have not seen this “commitment” on the part of our City Council and other officials. On the contrary, calls for “social justice” and “equity” have become “the number one priority” of the City Council, relegating “reducing crime” to orphan status.
A further SPP recommendation concerned OPD’s response to downtown riots. Keep in mind that the 2014 report came on the heels of massive, destructive Occupy Oakland demonstrations that caused widespread damage, and that foreshadowed later George Floyd protests that similarly got out of hand. SPP recommended that permits for such demonstrations be granted only if “internal monitors” could prevent them from turning violent. “When violence occurs,” the report said, “offenders must be dealt with harshly by the Oakland community.” The report urged that violent rioters be sentenced to “community service and payment for damages.” Moreover, “the business community must sue offenders for the cost of lost business and repair of physical damage.” Lastly, “the community must speak out that violence of any type is unacceptable and it is the fault of the perpetrators of such actions.” I [this is Steve speaking] think we can all agree that these recommendations make sense, yet have been disregarded by our civic leaders past and present, some of whom by their rhetoric have egged the rioters on.
CAUSES OF CRIME
The SPP report did not address the causes of crime, probably because they were not tasked with that. Their focus was on how to reduce and prevent crime, regardless of its causes. The report did note that “Most of the violent crime is committed by young adults,” and it favorably extolled existing city programs in Oakland to divert young people from the idleness that can lead to crime: summer jobs programs, karate and ballet classes, lifeguard training programs, young adult basketball, mentorships and the like. The 2014 report also foreshadowed today’s discussion about non-police alternatives in dealing with crime. “Today we recognize that while arrest of those who commit violent crime is a core requirement, we cannot arrest our way out of the crime problem.” SPP called for more investment in “crime prediction, prevention and community engagement.”
At the same time—and this is crucial--SPP strongly recommended hiring more cops. “It is clear,” the report stated unambiguously, “that the current number of sworn officers is not sufficient to support an effective crime reduction strategy.”
SO WHAT NUMBER IS SUFFICENT?
To answer this question, SPP compared Oakland’s number of cops per thousand residents to some other cities. The findings were as follows:
San Jose: 1.30/thousand
Oakland: 1.55/thousand
Denver: 2.42/thousand
Los Angeles: 2.57/thousand
San Francisco: 2.75/thousand
Newark: 4.67/thousand
Washington D.C.: 6.56/thousand
In other words, while Oakland had a slightly better ratio of cops to population than did San Jose in 2014, it seriously lagged behind the other cities. SPP warned, however, that “Using a strict ratio per thousand formula is not an appropriate measurement for Oakland.” This was “because of the level of violent crime and nature of disorder in sections of the community.” Oakland’s historically high level of crime mandated a bigger police force than similarly sized cities where crime was less rampant.
To further understand how many cops are needed in Oakland, Assistant Chief Allison sent me a study of “Violent Crimes Per Officer” in 50 U.S cities, including Oakland, for the years 2015-2019. (The data for 2020 have not yet been released.) This analysis factored in the number of police officers in each city and the total number of violent crimes, and resulted in a “Violent Crimes Per Officer” datapoint. The result: Oakland led all 50 American cities each year in the number of violent crimes per officer, with a 5-year average of 7.74 crimes per officer. By comparison, San Francisco’s 5-year rate of violent crimes per officer was 2.7. San Francisco’s population then as now was roughly double Oakland’s, about 830,000 vs. 400,000. Yet San Francisco had more than three times the number of cops, 2,306 in 2018 compared to Oakland’s 731, which clearly was why S.F.’s Violent Crimes Per Officer rate was so much lower. The “defund the police” types were, perhaps, unaware of these statistics—or, if they knew of them, just didn’t care.
All these factors, considered together, form the basis for Chief Armstrong’s assertion that Oakland needs 1,100 cops to truly tackle crime. As Assistant Chief Allison wrote me, “As you will see, Oakland was at the top of the [Violent Crimes Per Officer] ratio from 2015-2019. [This] not only creates higher workloads and lower capacity [at OPD] but also presents significant safety concerns. To get out of the top 5 highest violent crimes per officer category [in 2019], the department would have needed 1,100 officers.”
So there it is. Due to the City Council’s obsession with race politics at the expense of fighting crime, Oakland’s number of sworn officers has plunged dangerously low for years, hovering in the low- to mid-700s. That is nowhere near enough to adequately protect us, the people of Oakland. The Coalition for a Better Oakland supports Chief Armstrong’s call for OPD’s sworn officers to rise to 1,100, and we will expect all candidates in this November’s election to do likewise.
Steve Heimoff