Inside Oakland Breakfast- public safety moving in the right direction

Things do seem to be moving in the right direction, even though we do still have such a long way to go.

Here’s a table that captures some of the stats that were offered up in Friday's Inside Oakland Breakfast as well as those from recent City staff reports that capture the progress vs. the status quo challenges:

 

 

Public Safety: Progress v. Status Quo
Metrics	Progress	Status Quo
Homicides (& Non-Fatal Shootings)	·      Homicides down 28% in 2013; largest drop in 45 years ·     Non-fatal shootings down 16% last year; down 36% first part of this year	·      Multi-year averages for violent crime and homicides are all 3x to 6x state and national averages
Police Staffing & Recruitment	·      612 officers on the street today – a few away from lowest in history ·      47 – largest in history – graduate next week; up to 62 more in a few months ·      46% of officers over the last 4 academies were bilingual	·      Budgeted for 675 in FY14, though estimated need is 850-1,100 ·      5.32 monthly officer attrition ·      Not enough from the community and multilingual (e.g. 8% from Oakland

 

If you really want to delve into the issues…

Ø  Click here for a link to the staff report for the April 8 Public Safety Meeting that City Administrator Blackwell mentioned. This lays out the SAFER program:

ü  Stop violent crime.

ü  Assure school success and invest in prevention.

ü  Fund jobs and promote workforce readiness.

ü  Engage communities and build healthy neighborhoods.

ü  Renew the Oakland Police Department.

 

Ø  Here’s a link to the Tuesday, April 8 meeting agenda – note that this is a Special “in the community” meeting at Oakland Technical High School, though is still at the usual time of 6 PM.

Ø  Join the Chamber’s e-mail list: http://www.oaklandchamber.com/pages/About.

 

Ø  And, of course, plan on attending the biggest annual economic development event in Oakland – April 16: http://business.oaklandchamber.com/events/details/economic-development-summit-2823.

Thanks again to our sponsors Ruth Stroup Insurance Agency and Allied Barton Security Services, and to our speakers, City Administrator Fred Blackwell, Interim Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent, and Amy Roither from Detect All Security & Fire. 

Isaac Kos-Read

Public Affairs Consultant
Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce