Creating the Department of Violence Prevention, Oakland
Oakland, California is among the U.S. cities with the highest homicide rates. There were a total of 102 murders reported in the city in 2020 or 23.3 for every 100,000 people — well above the national homicide rate of 6.5 murders per 100,000. In addition, there were 1,291 violent crimes reported, for every 100,000 people in Oakland in 2020, compared to 399 incidents per 100,000 nationwide. However, this data by itself does not explain the fact that most of the violence in Oakland, as in all cities across the world, is committed by a small percentage of the population. For several years Oakland had success at reducing violence using a focused deterrence approach that focused on that small percentage of the population committing violence, an approach called the Oakland Ceasefire Strategy. Policymakers and community advocates critical of Ceasefire maintained that while the strategy reduced violence, Ceasefire created tensions in black and brown neighborhoods, as it relied primarily on police data to identify Ceasefire program participants. The Oakland Police Department (OPD) had been under federal oversight since 2003 and between 2010 and 2020, recorded a 40% clearance rate for homicides involving black victims and an 80% clearance rate for homicides involving white victims. In 2017, against the backdrop of political tensions the Oakland City Council passed legislation to set up a public-health, community-driven, violence prevention department that would provide direct services and oversee contracting of community-based implementing partners. In 2019, Guillermo Cespedes was recruited to serve as Chief of Violence Prevention to help build a “first-of-its-kind” Department of Violence Prevention (DVP).
Approach
Cespedes embarked on assembling the foundational elements for the department following the same blueprint employed in Los Angeles and Central America. He implemented the triangle response strategy for incidents of violence. He helped to find seed funding for family case management, which would be implemented by the city’s longtime community partners. He launched Town Nights (akin to Summer Night Lights in Los Angeles) as community-driven local programming to deter violence. Finally, he ensured that an evaluation system would monitor the program’s outcomes.
Preliminary results
From January to March 2020, homicides were less than half what they were for the same period the previous year. Preliminary data showed a 37% reduction in assaults and homicides with a firearm where Town Nights events took place. The Triangle Incident Response teams responded to 440 shootings to reduce retaliation, minimize trauma, and improve relationships between community and city government.
COVID pandemic
In March 2020, the COVID pandemic struck Oakland and with it the city experienced an increase in homicides. The spike in homicide rates mirrored those seen nationally. This hindered the progress of the Department of Violence Prevention, which was still in the design stages.
The outcome
Cespedes served three years with the city of Oakland. He was brought in to build a Department of Violence Prevention. By the time he left, the strategies of family case management, triangle response and community engagement as violence prevention were in place. The department was fully-funded – having increased its budget from $13 million to $30 million – and fully-staffed at 48 full time employees, 30% of whom had lived experience of violence. Cespedes had set up the city for a future in which violence could be tackled from a city/community-driven partnership.