By Mike Ferro, Make Oakland Better Now! Public Safety Committee

Community-based actions to reduce violent crime were presented and discussed at an Oakland Community Organization (OCO) gathering on Tuesday at a church on the border of Oakland’s Laurel and Dimond neighborhoods.

Community members gave personal testimony about the devastating effects of violence on their families. In one instance, two of four children in one family were violently attacked, with one child being killed and the other permanently disabled. A grandchild was also shot. The father described how it took five years after her son’s killing for the mother to resume a semblance of her previous life. One of the killers had just turned 18, and, tried and sentenced as an adult, received a prison sentence of 37 years to life, profoundly affecting his life and that of his family.

A mother described the results of conflicts between the Border Brothers and Norteño gangs in East Oakland. Since last January, for example, there were three shootings in front of Acorn Woodland Elementary School in East Oakland.

Community anti-violence interventions in Oakland and elsewhere are based on a model that has been used successfully in 46 cities in the U.S. The application of the model varies from city to city, reflecting social and economic conditions of each individual area.

Street outreach workers establish reliable contacts both with violent individuals and gangs as well as with ordinary citizens in each violence-afflicted neighborhood. Police investigatory work identifies the violence-prone social networks involved, which are usually drug-related. Police then document illegal activity and prepare the strongest possible case for legal prosecution. Next, community leaders set-up and implement a “call-in” in which violence-prone individuals are invited to a meeting with community leaders and police.

At the call-in meeting, community leaders offer the violent individuals real alternatives to a life of crime. The community also offers respect and emotional support, with the understanding that social pressure on these individuals is very difficult for them to overcome. Police and prosecutors make it very clear that if the violent individuals do not choose to change their lives, they will go to jail.

The mother from East Oakland described the reactions of gang members at a recent Oakland call-in. They maintained a tough, stone-cold presence through much of the presentation, until a woman from the community talked to them in a way which respected them fully as human beings, and told them how violence had affected her own family. This completely changed their negative, hostile mood. When she concluded her talk, they applauded her.

A video of a call-in, which was organized in High Point, North Carolina can be viewed here. A High Point city official reported that these interventions have reduced violent crime in High Point by 47 percent.

OCO is working very hard to get Oakland to commit to doing more call-in interventions to reduce crime, create more community unity and involvement in solving problems, and overcome the long-standing mistrust of police in our communities. Oakland’s existing call-in efforts are limited and have not been covered by the media, so the public generally is unaware of what has been going on.

OCO would like to see 25 street outreach workers working in violent neighborhoods in Oakland. They would like Oakland to hire a full-time coordinator to organize call-ins. OCO thinks that there will not be significant additional expenses, since call-ins involve using existing community, social-service, police and other governmental resources in a more effective and better-organized way.

A workshop on these interventions, sponsored by the National Network for Safe (NNSC) Communities (Oakland Police Chief Tony Batts is on the NNSC Executive Board) and Oakland’s Public Health Institute (PHI), will be held next week in San Francisco. This conference, according to its organizer Stuart Wakeling of PHI, is over-subscribed by nearly 100%, and is intended as a working meeting for professionals in social services and government who are already working on community anti-violence interventions.

OCO’s next effort toward increasing community anti-violence intervention will be a public meeting at St. Columba Church in Oakland on Thursday March 18 at 6 p.m. At this meeting presenters and agency representatives will include Oakland Police Chief Batts, members of the Oakland City Council and officials from other cities, including High Point, NC, San Jose and New Orleans, where the interventions are being used successfully. Those wishing to attend the meeting can RSVP by sending a email to MOBNpublicsafety@(no spam)yahoo.com.