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Email: ronoz@ronoz.com |
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Violent Crimes and Domestic Violence " Awareness is the first step toward prevention." [Police Chief, Detroit.] "...I cannot extend any reasoning that an increase of violent crimes could be attributed to greater attention given to domestic violence." " I believe what Oakland needs is awareness and attitude..." I read the post of Michael Johnson [below], and respectfully want to clarify my statements previously as not intended in any way to diminish the Measure Y efforts regarding domestic violence. I only wish the much larger sums of Measure Y monies would have been judiciously used with the same efforts and effectiveness against overall violence. With sincere admiration for Measure Y and programs geared especially to advancing advocacy for battered women and to encourage reporting of domestic violence offenses, we should still keep things in proper perspective when discussing the overall Paradigm Escalation of Violent Crimes in Oakland. I say this because we should not for a moment be complacent or continue business-as-usual with Public Safety in Oakland. We can all stipulate that an increase in domestic violence reporting is a "good thing." This concession should in no way be extended to infer that the increase of overall Violence in Oakland is a good thing. All of us on OPD, going back to even us old timers, can recall that domestic violence "calls" were those where we had to be most on guard because they could, and often did, grow into very dangerous situations. We have also been to countless calls where the abused spouse was afraid to make a police report, despite our attempts at insistence. As far back as Chief Gain's time we had Violence Prevention Units with Officers trained to specialize in domestic violence cases, so this is not reinventing the wheel. To demonstrate our attention to this topic in days past, we even had special counseling programs to abate Officer-family domestic violence incidents and the potential for such. Intimate partner abuse occurs all too frequently everywhere. We should be so pleased that Measure Y has targeted domestic violence, but Measure Y has only been in existence since 2005. Every major police department in the country has focused to some degree on domestic violence with special programs, and thank goodness. Since I've been talking in previous essays about San Jose, allow me to point out their "Next Door Solutions," which is a comprehensive and costly focus on abating domestic violence that has been official for 37 years. It can be found on the Internet. It is a private charitable corporation with an operating budget of just over $3 million. I checked Oakland, and found "A Safe Place," which is a similar organization, although on a smaller scale. Kaiser Permanente also has domestic violence services. Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno started a Federal Office and Department of Justice priority for Domestic Violence in 1995. Alameda County offers Oaklanders related services. The Richmond Police Department formed their "Family Services Unit" in 2002. The Berkeley Police Department has worked with the "Family Violence Law Center" and a half dozen agencies for many years. The topic has been of considerable concern and much attention has been placed on it even during the "crack epidemic" of the late 80's and early 90's [referred to by Mr. Johnson]. Domestic violence efforts have been pervasive for decades, and thank goodness. This topic is not one to take lightly or diminish in severity in any way. The Department of Justice estimated that 40% to 50% of all women murdered were done so in a domestic quarrel. Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) also includes date violence, and as a father of four daughters I can assure you I am constantly alert and with concern. I read all the Internet sites I could find on this topic for three hours today, and I'm a fast reader. I'm humbled for what I read and would like to participate in some small way if possible. I will make a contribution to one of Oakland's efforts. However, I can tell you that nowhere in any of the reading did I catch any statement that indicated the work done to stem domestic violence had the effect of raising violent crimes, and certainly there was no mention that rising violent crimes in this context, or any other, was a "good thing." My own sense of the good work that is being done, is that there should be an increase in reported domestic violence offenses, and that's a good thing. If anything, such an increase in reported domestic violence offenses should also likely even prevent some murders. Saving even one murder is worth it. Beyond that, with respect to Oakland's high violent crime rate I cannot extend any reasoning that an increase of violent crimes could be attributed to greater attention given to domestic violence. Looking at the latest Daily Crime Analysis Report, the number of reported domestic violence cases this year is indeed up 22 over the 212 reported last year. However, that's statistically only 22/212 out of 3,613 violent crimes. It is difficult to sort out specific domestic violence crimes, perhaps, because if one resulted in murder, or assault with a firearm or a knife, presumably such incidents would be counted in those categories. Yet, perceiving the 22 incident increase is a good representative statistical index. If anything, assuming the success of anti-domestic violence, one would expect murders and other more aggravated outcroppings of domestic violence to decrease... Otherwise, wouldn't they be unsuccessful? In 2006, OPD took reports for 407 domestic violence incidents. In 2007, that rate increased to 494. In 2008, if we extrapolate straight line we can expect 534 domestic violence reports. That's an impressive increase of 32% in three years. The question is, (1) how much of the increase has been due to greater awareness and education, and (2) has the increase in domestic violence reporting had an impact on violent crimes? First of all, "Miscellaneous Assaults," unrelated to domestic violence, for the same three year period were 1,225, 1,224, and will be 1,522. That's an increase of 22%. Total Aggravated Assaults were 3,415, 3,509, and will be 3,874. That's an increase of 13.2%. So clearly, the reporting of domestic violence has gone up at a greater pace than might be otherwise expected. However, Measure Y wasn't around in 2004, and neither was Chief Tucker or any part of his "reorganization" of OPD. Domestic violence cases are a relatively small part of the overall Aggravated Assaults. There were 6.48 Aggravated Assaults per thousand Oakland residents in 2004, and today (June 9) the rate is 10.2. That's a 57% increase in Aggravated Assaults, dwarfing the annual increase in domestic violence. That's not a good thing, nor is it likely that the mathematically few domestic violence interventions played any role in this "Paradigm Escalation." All the other California cities over 100,000 experienced 4.21 Aggravated Assaults in 2004, and they reduced that number -19% to 3.41 in 2006. However optimistically we might like to credit domestic violence intervention in Oakland, and include a summary that it had anything to do with the increase in violent crimes, and that the increase was a "good thing," it simply doesn't add up. It is unlikely that domestic violence had anything to do with Robberies, and they are up dramatically. In 2004 there were 2,190 Robberies, and in 2008 the rate will be around 4,000. That's an 83% increase in Robberies. This kind of four year increase has never happened going back to 1969. In 2004, there was a total of 5,151 Violent Crimes reported in Oakland, and this year it looks like about 8,300. That's an increase of 61% in Violent Crimes. However laudable the domestic intervention awareness programs are, and they are, it is beyond comprehension to (1) believe that our paradigm escalation of Violent Crimes has any discernable connection to such programs; and (2) that such an escalation is "a good thing." Any reference to the "crack epidemic" that occurred two decades ago and peaked in the early nineties is an obvious non sequitur, a statement containing an illogical conclusion. The entire United States was in the grips of the crime epidemic. Oakland's Police Chief did his best and remained below the secular trends of violent crimes that were rampant everywhere. Indeed, our most violent year in history occurred in 1992. But was it a Paradigm Escalation as today? It should be fair to make a direct comparison, when we said earlier that Violent Crimes have gone up 61% in the past four years. We should note that they went up only 24% in 1992 from the preceding 4 years. Aggravated Assaults that have gone up 70% in the past 4 years, only went up 12.6% in 1992 from the period 4 years earlier. Never in Oakland's history has the violent crimes rate escalated anywhere nearly as much as during the past four years. In fact, looking at every four year period going back to 1969, the average escalation has been 6.4%. The highest on record, other than the past four years, was 39% back in 1980. In the forty years since 1969, there have been only five with more violent crimes than this year. So again, it is fair to say that Oakland is in the grips of an unparalleled escalation of violent crime during this police administration. As long as we're talking about Oakland's historical crime rate. Let me point out that for the past 37 years when full records were presented, Oakland's violent crime rate fell 18 times and rose 19 from the previous year. Nowhere in all that time was there ever an occasion when the rate went up consistently as during Chief Tucker's tenure. Only once did the violent crime rate increase three years in a row - during the violent "crack" epidemic 1990 to 1992. However, all large cities suffered these increases simultaneously, and during Tucker's forty months Oakland stood alone. In the early nineties, New York had over 2,000 murders annually. Currently they report less than 500. In 1999 Oakland had 60 murders, down from 165 in 1992 (more dramatic than the "Boston Miracle"). However, in 2006 we jumped to 145 murders (+142%). 2007 suffered 125 murders, and 2008 looks very bleak (up 30% at the moment). Last year at this time we had 43 murders, or 34.4% of the year end total. This is perhaps understandable due to seasonal differences, even though we are at the 43.8% point of this year. If the same ratio holds, Oakland can expect 163 Homicides this year. Let's hope not. Another sobering perspective is that in 2004, Oakland had only 50% of the violent crime rate as it had in 1992. In 4 years we have now caught up to 82% of the 1992 violent crime scourge. In 2004, Oakland was 27th in violent crimes ranking nationally. By 2006, we have attained number 4. National numbers aren't out yet, but numbers 3 (Memphis), 2 (Detroit), and 1 (St. Louis) seem to be reducing their rates and we can thus find ourselves Number 1 because we're incrementally increasing in violent crimes. The St. Louis police website indicates their violent crimes are down 11% and overall crime is down 16%. Detroit's Violent Crimes are reported to have fallen 8%. Memphis reports dropping 1.4%. My thesis is that the obvious aberration of crime in Oakland, at such dire escalation and acceleration, is not a freak storm. It is due entirely to OPD mismanagement and leadership at the top. This is not a comment about personality or lack of trying on the part of Chief Tucker. It is finger pointing, however, at the desk where the buck stops. As in professional sports or in private business, the person with the playbook either gets credit or blame. In this case, I've pointed out many glaring examples of OPD disconnection, disintegration, fragmentation, and severe problems. I've busted the excuses about the "baby boomer" attrition that didn't exist at all. I've exposed the so-called side letters that the Chief said in a news article caused him to be a Chief in name only. I've talked about the equivalent of over 200 extra cops that Chief Tucker spent in overtime and on annuitants that had no impact on crime. I've spoken about the loss of Beat Health, Vice Control, Planning and Research, Juvenile, and the terrible loss of our Jail. Most of all, I've pointed out Chief Tucker's elimination of the Patrol Division Beat System, his decimation of Investigations, and the imbalance of priorities toward "Hot Spots" and Fluid Deployments over the past 40 months. The coup de grace for OPD was the so-called "reorganization" that turned Oakland into three police departments with Captains on-duty only 25% of the time. The 25 separate line-ups program of 2-2-3-2-2-3 12-hour shifts guaranteed total chaos and spelled the death knell for community policing. I've written many essays, all of them as factually correct as I could gather information available. Much of it has been criticism, but always with a constructive intent. I've offered essays with ideas, optimism, and even a comprehensive crime prevention plan with strategies and tactics. I've pointed out considerable waste and inefficiencies, but also described in detail how we can increase the presence of officers in our neighborhoods by over 500%. Everything I've proposed lacked excuses or the placement of blame, or the imposition of conditions. I've proposed Mobile Police Stations similar to major construction site offices, and even offered to pay for many of them. A constant confidence I've presented is that we can turn things around quickly and reduce the crime rate dramatically, all within current resources and budgets. I believe what Oakland needs is awareness and attitude... Fair is fair, if Chief Tucker's 39 years experience on the Sheriff's Department and his ideas so alien to the normal evolution of practices at OPD had worked and reduced the violent crime rate in Oakland we should herald him in admiration. Statistical analysis tells us that given the experiences elsewhere, and had Chief Word continued in office, all things being equal, Oakland should now expect about 4,300 violent crimes. In other words, no real improvement, but at least we would have stayed steady with secular trends. So, to justify Chief Tucker's completely different style and methods, we should have expected him to significantly reduce Oakland's crime rate - say maybe to the 3,500 range. This is still 240% of San Jose's violent crimes rate, but nevertheless a noticeable improvement. Instead, we now expect 8,300 violent crimes this year. That's 94% more than we would have set for a benchmark for Chief Word and his "old-fashioned practices." That's 137% more than we should have expected from Chief Tucker had his methods worked. There is nothing in the demographics to explain our violence, In previous essays I've gone into detail such as... we lost 20% of the people in the prime prone ages (10 to 35) and we gained 17% of those over 55 when crime is a rare occurrence. I've also itemized where San Jose has double the people living in poverty, the youth, the immigrants, the non-English speakers, and yet our violent crime rate is 546% of theirs. They have a population 2.6 times ours, and their number of violent crimes is less than half ours. We are likely to be the most violent city in the U.S., while San Jose is touted as the "Safest." There are those who hold on to the thread that the Police Chief has nothing to do with the crime rate. Don't tell that to New York, where Chief Bratton lowered it by 54%, or Los Angeles where he lowered it 39%. Don't tell that to all the teams who turned losing into winning after changing head coaches. Don't tell that to all the shareholders who saw losses turn into profits after changing their chief executives. Most of all, don't tell that to all the members of OPD who know better. They are eager to be functionally organized, inspirationally led, and efficiently managed. They are ready, qualified, and anxious. ronoz ps. I would be pleased to share dialogue with Mike Johnson sometime, and Mike, if you read this please email or telephone. Public Safety is understandably the chief issue for policy analysis. I only want to help. I exercise my opinions not to yell "fire" in a crowded theater, but to scream as loud as I can that we are living in perilous danger that is real, and we can do something about it. Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 9:59 AM, C Brown <oaklandact@comcast.net> wrote: |
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Email: ronoz@ronoz.com |
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