By: Adriana Regalado
In two recent March 19, 2013 Oakland Tribune articles, “Oakland begins overhauling police command structure” and “Oakland unveils new community policing strategy”, it is revealed that the Oakland Police Department will now be implementing a community policing strategy. The first of the two articles states that the community policing strategy is a “new crime-fighting strategy,” but it actually came about in the 1990‘s as a response to professional policing. As discussed in the Sklansky reading, the three elements to community policing are that police departments broaden their focus from crime control to a range of other goals, that they select and pursue those goals in consultation and cooperation with the public/community, and that authority within departments is decentralized. These three elements are exactly what the Oakland PD now plans to implement. Oakland PD Captain Steve Tull said "This is truly an opportunity to bond with the community, listen to their concerns, address their concerns and, more importantly, engage them in the decision-making process.” Sklansky’s first two elements to community policing will be met by the police captains working directly with community advisory committees to get neighborhood input. “Police leaders have again overhauled the department's command structure, this time scrapping Oakland's two massive policing zones in favor of five smaller districts that will each be run by a captain responsible for fighting crime and building rapport with residents.” Sklansky’s third element to community policing will be met by decentralizing Oakland policing forces into five different geographic districts, which will all be enforced by on captain who will be an expert at fighting crime in that local area.
The necessity for community style policing was also urged by officers Figueroa and Joshi from the Oakland Police Department. They explained that Oakland has kind of been forced to invoke the community policing strategy in order to establish legitimacy with the people of Oakland. These relationships with those who live in high crime communities are extremely necessary in order to gain intelligence from the community, which in turn could reduce future crime.
One of the main opposing arguments that resulted in the push away from community policing following its implementation, were the added costs it placed upon police departments. For this reason, it is extremely interesting that they are now implementing community policing in Oakland when funds and resources are now so scarce amidst all of the current California budget cuts. Even Berkeley officer Eric Upson discussed how the Oakland police department is so understaffed that it only has about 600 officers, but is estimated to need 1200 officers.
Interesting article Adriana. I am not sure if you may know the answer to this question, but what is the difference between this type of community-led policing and the type of community policing that was enforced in the previous years in Oakland. What makes this type of community policing more effective than the previous? I do agree that in cities such as Oakland though, that community led policing is the most effective way to govern society because it is so diverse and has different needs from different members of the community.
ReplyDelete- Andres Diaz
The police have a bad image in many places. They elicit fear and distrust even from honest citizens. Movies featuring corrupt cops do not help. The idea of community policing is good in that it aims to give the police officer a friendly image to the community. Hopefully, a change in image would help them gain the trust of the community members and with that trust, it would be easy to get information from them when needed.
ReplyDelete-Sehun Lee
Interesting read. This definitely ties back to the different styles of policing we discussed previously in the semester. I really like Andres's question. Do you know if this form of community policing is hybridized or possibly a subsequent generation of community policing? Considering the scarcity in resources the Oakland police department is currently experiencing, utilizing the human capital present in different neighborhoods, such as neighborhood watchdog groups, may save them valuable time and manpower.
ReplyDelete-Salena Tiet
I actually find that it might be beneficial for the community of Oakland to have community-policing implemented. As I continue to read RIos' book, it is blatantly clear and numerously mentioned that the police officers, for the most part, do not have a great relationship with youth of color who are seen as possible delinquents. I feel that police officers should strive to create positive relationships with the community members and show them that they really do care. I find community policing as a great way to begin to build that relationship. It would be interesting and helpful on the fight of crime, to hear what community members, especially those who are stigmatized, have to say.
ReplyDelete-Genesis
Interesting question brought up by Andres. I am not exactly sure as to what the difference between this type of community-led policing and the type of community policing that was enforced in the previous years in Oakland, but I believe it will be more of a hybrid type of style between community and intelligence/data driven based policing. Officers Figuero and Joshi discussed the importance intelligence/data driven based policing as the most effective means to lower and prevent crime, but that a lot of the intelligence/data will need to come from the community.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that officers Figueroa and Joshi said that stuck with me was that "police officers are both social workers and public servants". This greatly demonstrates the role the Oakland PD will be forced to play to effectively implement community style policing in Oakland.
~Adriana
Oakland PD needs community policing and it's great to know that they are acknowledging that necessity and are trying to provide it for their city. The problem is the scarcity of resources and police officers which are short by half. This may make it hard to implement community policing until there is more funding and resources. Community policing is definitely something the city of Oakland needs and hopefully it can benefit from it once there is more funding to make that happen.
ReplyDeleteThis could definitely be the much needed change in the Oakland PD. Obviously, what they are doing isn't working to the standard required. The technique of dividing of the local 2 jurisdictions into 5 would provide a more detailed crime fighting technique. But what is far more important would be the personalization of individual police officers to their respective districts. This would defiantly encourage rapport building between the police and their residents. Overall, great article and good news for the City of Oakland. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to tell if they will be doing anything different in terms of policing strategies because we do not know what they were doing before, as has already been mentioned. I think that the main thing they are doing is hauling their strategy to make the department more efficient. Policing in 5 districts seems to be infinitely more practical than the two way split they had before. I think the smaller the specific targeted areas, the more thy will lend themselves to community policing.
ReplyDelete-Dmitriy Starkov
I think this article is very interesting. I think that by doing the community policing, Oakland is on the right track to try to gain some sort of legitimacy back with their people. Their legitimacy is so far gone due to cases like Oscar Grant that they need to do something to try to gain respect and legitimacy. I believe in class we had talked about Oakland potentially developing some of the stop and frisk tactics and I believe that pursuing this route of community policing is a much better strategy to try to gain order and also gain understanding about what is going with the crime in the city.
ReplyDelete-Tayler Davis