By Sarah Han
The good news: Oakland crime is down (Yay!)
Bad news: But so is police morale.
Here’s why that matters:
Last year, Oakland was named the second-most-dangerous city in the US. The data came from Crime in the United States, an annual report compiled by the FBI. This year, the data from 2013 shows that Oakland dropped a couple spots on the list to fourth-most-dangerous city in America. According to CNNMoney who publishes the annual report, Oakland’s police department has been “focusing on areas that are most prone to crime.” The murder rate decreased 30% last year, the lowest it’s been since 2004, as did assaults and rapes. Mayor Jean Quan’s spokesperson, Sean Maher told the Chronicle that they’re not putting up the “mission accomplished” banner just yet, but they feel the drop in crime is proof they’re “on the right track.” Sure, it is great that the city isn’t #1 or #2 this year, but I’m hoping next year, we won’t be on the list at all.
The two big reasons Oakland’s still in the danger zone: the crap budget and the police force, which is still less than one-third the size it should be. The East Bay Express recently ran a bummer piece about how OPD thinks the city is “too liberal,” and how this discrepancy is partially to blame for the city’s crime problems. Not only do the cops not trust Mayor Quan and city leadership, but they feel under appreciated by Oakland residents and by the police department as a whole. East Bay Express explains, “More than half of the city’s police officers also do not believe ‘that hard work and good work performance helps to get ahead’…. and some officers say that the agency has become the ‘laughing stock’ of law enforcement.” The main takeaway from the piece seems to be that OPD is pretty much broken on many levels, and that there’s a lots of problems that are making it difficult, if not impossible, for these people who are supposed to protect and serve to actually do their jobs.
Another example of how Oakland can’t seem to get it together was reported this morning on KQED: the Domain Awareness Center, a proposed surveillance center with a name that’s both sterile, yet somehow ominous in a sci-fi movie way. Some people, including my neighborhood council guy, Dan Kalb, OK’d the center, which is supposed to help fight crime. But others fear more Big Brother-type activity (which isn’t too far-fetched, considering what we’ve learned about the NSA), think it’s a really, really bad idea and have petitioned to stop the DAC from becoming a reality. The center will gather information through microphones, cameras, and other equipment set up around the city to record crimes as they happen. But aside from worries of the government spying on us all, another huge problem is that no one knows how Oakland will afford the time and staffing it would take for the center to even be effective. KQED reports that the Chief Officer at the Port of Oakland and the city’s chief of emergency services have different ideas of who will be keeping an eye on the data coming in from the DAC and hours of operation. At this time plans for the surveillance center continue to move forward despite these issues.
So… good news that Oakland’s crime is dropping, but there are still a lot of big hurdles to get over before we can really celebrate.
Photo by Thomas Hawk via Flickr
