Oakland’s community policing philosophy recognizes the interdependence and shared responsibility of the police and the community to make our Oakland a safer and more livable city. This partnership is tasked with jointly identifying community safety issues, determining resources, and applying innovative strategies designed to create and sustain healthy, vital neighborhoods.

Community policing is both an old and a new concept. It is a return to a more personal approach to law enforcement using new new techniques in problem-solving and community involvement. The past decade has seen huge amounts of resources put into building more jails and increasing penalties for crimes with little effect on the actual crime rate. Community policing represents a viable alternative, that has been shown to significantly reduce crime in cities across the country. The City of Oakland has adopted the philosophy of community policing and is committed to its full integration.

The key elements of our community policing philosophy:

Community Involvement

Local neighborhood crime problems are, in fact, community problems. They reflect a host of community-related issues, including education, economics, family life, neighborhood organization, and cultural values. Our philosophy moves us away from using police as the last line of defense against crime, and toward total community involvement in reducing and preventing crime. The Oakland Department will remain the leader in anti-crime efforts but Oakland's citizens and businesses will have greater involvement and responsibilities in establishing the priorities for these efforts.

Problem-Solving Orientation

Police officers have been historically utilized in a reactive mode; to respond to as many calls for service as possible. The philosophy recognizes that reactive policing leaves many of the issues that create chronic crime problems unaddressed. In community policing, the problem-solving capabilities of patrol officers, supervisors, commanders, and investigators is expanded in order to more successfully address the underlying causes of crime problems that plague some of our neighborhoods.

Community-Based Deployment Strategies

A key goal of community policing is to bring the police closer to the community. To increase accessibility. To engender a sense of ownership by the community towards the Police Department. To create a stronger identification within the Police Department back toward the community. This is beng done in a variety of ways including:

• Creation of three area commands and smaller beats throughout the City of Oakland
• Emphasizing foot patrols
• Using Neighborhood Crime Prevention Councils (NCPC) to identify crime problems, determine solutions, and increase the level of communication between members of the community and the police

Increased Police Accountability

Community policing requires an increased involvement by the community to define the role of the police in their city. Under community policing, the public is part of the decision-making process for the development and implementation of programs designed to restore neighborhoods as strong components of safer cities.