The crime prevention program is called Oakland Unite and its
website tells us that the strategies are Youth Services, Family Violence,
Reentry Services and Crisis Intervention.
http://oaklandunite.org/blog/category/our-program-strategies/
Look around the website, and you will find lots of support for getting
funding. An actual list of who HAS
funding is found here: http://oaklandunite.org/grantee-corner/
Oakland Unite functions more or less like any other Foundation handing out
grants.
If Measure Y were a grant recipient asking for a renewal
after 10 years, an independent review of the past work, supervised by those
giving the money (in this case us the voters) would inspect the program.
The questions asked would be: Was the program effective in dealing with the
problem it was trying to address? Was
it cost effective? Were funds spent
wisely and properly? Who benefited
how? How many benefited for how
long? What happens to the target
community when they leave the program?
Those questions have not been asked of Measure Y and that
kind of review has not been done.
So let’s go back to the top.
In 2004 we voted 20 million dollars a year for stable police and fire
and to start down the path of violence and crime prevention, intelligently
turning our backs on the “tough-on-crime” failures of the twentieth
century. Probably one of the smartest
things we could have done given our prison system without rehabilitation and
our parole system’s total failure. I was
in total support of Measure Y and totally support the concept inspiring that
small part of the funds headed toward Social Services.
Rough estimates are that Oakland incarcerates, and releases
about 5 to 9 people on any given work day.
From what Probation and Parole employees have told me, about 13 to 17
thousand of our people in some form of incarceration or provisional release at
any one time. A lot of those going to
jail are going back to jail and a lot of those coming out will not be out too
long.
There is no agency giving us a report on the whole situation
and there is much massaging of numbers, but even given the lowest estimates of
the size of this vicious circle of our criminal justice system, we are talking
about thousands of people directly involved and serious stress and crisis for
tens of thousands of Oakland families.
If you take families, friends and neighbors into account, it puts about
one resident in eight into direct contact with some kind of Oakland crime and
violence problem. More if you count the
victims of crimes. It would be very hard
to find anyone in town who has not been robbed, or has had a family member or
friend who has been harmed in some way.
We in Oakland know crime, and given that, we made a very
informed choice to take the path of prevention.
Now I ask you to think about what you know about this city, the size of
this problem and ask yourself if you think the numbers measure up for what we
have experienced over the last 10 years. Looking over the Oakland Unite website
you will see dozens of youth and family served in that time, probably hundreds,
maybe even a couple thousand, but looking over the city you will see thousands,
probably tens of thousands left to the way things worked before the ten year,
forty million dollar, Measure Y experiment. The whole project cost us $200 million when
you add police and fire.
I feel that we are letting the big ticket items fall too far
down the list to be effective. Given the
limited resources, even with Measure Y/Z money, I feel we should focus on the
areas of highest need and highest yield.
Top of that list of high yield programs that should be a
priority is Restorative Justice. We need
to stop sending so many people to jail and Restorative Justice Group-Family
meetings provide a well-tested alternative.
Instead of a trial, sentence, and parole path, the offenders are brought
to their community through the meeting in lieu of a trial and given a
restitution and reform path to follow instead of a sentence. Families and communities having difficulties,
creating the conditions for the crime and violence should be able to receive
targeted assistance. This system has been
worked on and the beginners’ mistakes have been made in other places. Two things are known. 1) It costs a lot less than regular law
enforcement. 2) Restorative Justice Systems have never performed worse than
prison when it comes to repeat crimes.
Some people think that prevention programs are the long term
solution when in this case it is how we stop feeding the whirlwind RIGHT
NOW. How many crimes would we have
prevented if we had had a serious Restorative Justice program in Oakland during
the 10 years of measure Y? We have been
fixing flat tires as the potholes get worse.
What do we have in the way of Restorative Justice after ten
years of Measure Y?
Maybe one or two cases resolved this way a week and some low number, amorphous support from the county without a clear plan or agreement. We have lots of “great first steps” when we should have made it a lot further down the road.
Maybe one or two cases resolved this way a week and some low number, amorphous support from the county without a clear plan or agreement. We have lots of “great first steps” when we should have made it a lot further down the road.
After our fifty to a hundred cases a year resolved with
restorative justice practices, the 5 to 9 other criminal cases a day are taken
to Court where the District Attorney’s office practices the same old policies
of getting as many convictions as they can, getting as many years of sentencing
as they can and trying as many youth as adults as they can. You can go watch, it is in the main
courthouse, ask the desk which departments are seeing criminal cases. Since Measure Y went into effect a whole new
generation of Oakland youth have been through lock up, almost none of whom were
considered for an alternative resolution.
Many lives of crime have been started and made worse since 2004.
For an example of Restorative Justice going well take a look
at our own Oakland Schools. And yes some
of the push came from Measure Y.
School discipline has the same problems as the criminal
justice system. Restorative Justice has
given a way to have better behavior, better participation and fewer suspensions
and expulsions overall and less disproportionate damage to school careers of
black and brown students. This
city/school collaboration is one of the few bright lights of the last ten
years.
How about the other end?
What do we do for those who are about to be released? Do they have a place to go? An integration plan? Have we met with their friends, family, and
church before they get out? Has the
State offered them any rehabilitation, job training, basic education while they
were in? A bank account? One of those Oakland ID cards? So are we spending measure Y money to teach
people how not to act like they just got out of jail and to tell them how to
apply for the insufficient services?
The re-entry programs on the Oakland Unite website seem very
cool, but are they really targeted on the extreme situation a person finds
themselves when the bus lands them down at MLK and San Pablo? Do they measure up to the real needs out there? Have we put a dent into parole violations and
new convictions? The State of California
does not think so. Google Little Hoover
Commission and Parole.
So, I think that the programs of Oakland Unite miss the main
action. The police feel that the main
four social factors that need addressing are 1) substance abuse, 2)
homelessness, 3) truancy and 4) recidivism. At least one of the four is present
at most murder scenes. Only one of those is in the Measure Z priorities
list. Nothing is in there to set up a
triage office of the Oakland Police to review every arrest BEFORE we hand it to
the county for incarceration and the DA’s office for prosecution. There is nothing in there to provide a
serious number of half way houses and serious support to those getting out from
behind bars.
Well, isn’t something better than nothing? Are we not doing something good, albeit not
perfect?
Good arguments both at times. In the case of Measure Z we are being asked
to spend 20 million a year for the next ten years, pretty much along the lines
of the last ten years. If we pass
measure Z, and we probably will despite me and my little blog, that will be the
only money we will get. The money it
will raise is already spent. There is no
other money on the horizon and the whole process is focused on subcontracting,
so there is little training or setup inside our city agencies and most of the
work is done by non-union outside vendors.
Isn’t Measure Z a case of “something-better-than-nothing”? I
see it more as something ineffective standing in the way of doing what is most
needed for crime prevention.
Without Measure Z would we not be
“letting-the-perfect-keep-us-from-doing-the-good”? In my view Measure Z allows a lot of problems
with what we are doing go un-fixed.
Council and the public will both think we are on the right track, when
all we have done is really nowhere near enough or on target. With Measure Z we will continue to have day
to day operations at police and fire unstably funded by this temporary tax and
there is nothing in the measure to demand police accountability or make sure we
get the long promised community policing.
Measure Z is a status quo measure that will give us status
quo results.
This is spending what little cash we have on some nonprofits
while missing the boat.
There is a whole other side to this discussion following the
lion’s share of the funds. The Police
Department and City Council were sure able to spend those funds, and two thirds
of our discretionary budget at the same time.
After ten years we still don’t have the promised Community Policing, and
for that matter, we don’t have much police accountability at all. We are STILL under court control for the Rider’s
police abuse case. Our police abuse
cases compensation payouts add up to more than San Francisco and San Jose
COMBINED. About 10 million a year! If we got that down, we could pay for
everything Measure Y now funds without spending a dime of the special tax and
we could spend the special tax on giving people a life after jail or helping
them avoid that life of crime altogether.
The last amendment to Measure Y was to fix the cutoff point
for police funding. That was after Quan
crashed the program in a dispute with our police officers over pension
contributions. Almost all of the new
police from the academies are offsetting the loss of 80 of our newest officers
at that time. Current council members
scream at the thought of losing the Measure Y funding because they have already
spent it on day to day operations that should come out of the general fund. They still have not gotten a handle on our
exaggerated police costs and pouring special tax funds into our police
department is akin to pouring water into a bucket with holes in it. Little makes it from the well to the
kitchen. Why would this improve under
Measure Z when it did not improve after ten years of Measure Y?
There are examples of Community Policing working just
fine. One is in Richmond CA. In that town the civilians run the police and
they hired a police chief who would implement their policies. No special tax, just an active government and
lots and lots of grass roots community work.
In Oakland, the man who wrote our Community Policing policy is running
for mayor promising to finally make it happen.
But crime is down?
There sure are a lot of politicians running around claiming credit for
our nationwide drop in crime. The
numbers do not really credit any one thing.
Crime is down across the country; Oakland has followed the trend, not
led it. Right wingers claim that it is
because of such things as Three Strikes and everyone trying to get reelected is
saying that low crime rates prove them right on policies as diverse as
Ceasefire and Stop and Frisk.
At first after Measure Y crime went up. It went up again when Quan became Mayor. Way up.
We had some of the highest murder rates in years. Now we have some of the lowest. It would be bad sociology to conclude much
yet. It is good politics for some to
blame Jean Quan and Measure Y for the high crime of 2010 and for Jean Quan and
the Measure Z backers to claim the credit for the low crime of 2014. How could both be true?
Before we start running around saying this or that “works”
we should ask ourselves “works to do what?”
I want something that works to prevent our youth from becoming
criminals.
If we do not vote in Measure Z, we can still continue with
Ceasefire, Community Policing and Restorative Justice. We should do as Richmond has done and tell
the Police Department that this is what the residents have chosen to do and it
is the police department’s job to do it well.
We are not dealing well with convictions, releases and
direct aid to families and 20 million a year on the Measure Z will not change
that one bit.
But Measure Z, like Measure Y before it, sucks all the money
out of the budget while missing the mark.
Our budget is not a short term disaster right now. The sky will not fall on our non-profits’
heads if we vote it down. We have the
money we could use to pay directly for the programs that really deliver
services to those it helps. Remember
that the Human Services part of Measure Z is the SMALLEST item on the menu. We should review those projects, one by one,
and fund them as they are found deserving.
We should have the whole program professionally, independently, reviewed
and audited before setting up any more special taxes. Our council fell down on the job by not
doing this before putting the renewal on the ballot.
A budget that works after Measure Z is over would be
nice. My choice would be to spend
special tax moneys on special things, setup of new programs for example, and
get operational funds from the operational budgets of City and County. Use a ballot tax to set them up, use normal
taxes to keep them running and we have something of a sustainable plan.
The Measure Y had no such plan other than to come back to
the public telling us we have to do it again.
We also need to work out some details and have agreements
with both the county and the state. If we
do things, such as restorative justice, or housing parolees, then we are doing
things that are normally the county’s and state’s job. If we keep people out of the criminal justice
system, we are saving the state and county a lot of money. We should negotiate getting some of those
funds. It is also our money. The DA’s office, County social services, the
Department of Corrections and so on, should either provide the services we all
pay for, or help us pay for doing it here in Oakland ourselves.
We should also have clear who does what in Oakland. Everything related to social services, law
and justice, crime and punishment overlaps with Alameda County and the State of
California. There is some coordination
and cooperation now and such things as Ceasefire depend on it, but there is a
lot more that needs to be done, especially when one of ours is let out of jail. Some advanced planning and written agreements
with state and county are in order.
I am not saying that the whole thing is a total failure, far
from it, just too expensive and ineffective to be worth renewing without
reform. Let’s take the time to fix it
and bring back in better health.
