Community News: Faith Leaders Call for Scale-Up of Violence Intervention Efforts on Thursday

Ryan Van Lenning Tue, 23 Mar at 4:16pm

Faith Leaders Call for Scale-Up of Violence Intervention Efforts

March 18 community action will support community-led “Lifelines to Opportunity”

 

OAKLAND, CA – On Thursday, March 18, local religious leaders and community members will join Oakland Chief of Police Anthony Batts and public safety officials from across the country to call for the scale-up of violence intervention strategies that are proving successful in Oakland and dozens of other cities across the country.

 WHO:

500 local community members and faith leaders, with:

·       Oakland Chief of Police Anthony Batts

·       Oakland City Council members Larry Reid, Ignacio de la Fuente, Jean Quan, and Rebecca Kaplan

·       Representatives from the Office of Mayor Ron Dellums

·       National violence intervention experts

 WHAT:

Faith leaders call on city officials to bring proven violence intervention strategies to scale in Oakland. National practitioners will be on hand to demonstrate how street outreach and call-in sessions lead to crime reduction in their cities.

 WHEN:

Thursday, March 18 at 6:30 p.m.

 WHERE:

St. Columba Catholic Church in Oakland, 6401 San Pablo Avenue, at Alcatraz

Based on data that shows that most violent crime is committed by a small percentage of people, Oakland Community Organizations’ “Lifelines to Opportunity” strategy intervenes directly in the lives of those people, connecting them with resources, opportunity and consequences. The focused intervention strategy, which combines street outreach with “call-in” interventions, has been helping reduce violent crime in 46 US cities, including Cincinnati, Chicago and Boston.

 “We have begun doing this in Oakland on a small scale,” said Barbara Lafitte-Oluwole, OCO leader from St. Patrick Catholic Church. “We know it saves lives, and we want to take it to scale. Now we need City Hall to step up and champion these efforts.”

 Thursday’s action is organized by Oakland Community Organizations, which is part of PICO National Network.  PICO represents 1.2 million families in 17 states across the nation and works for safe communities, housing opportunities and immigration reform.

Contact:

Amy Fitzgerald

Oakland Community Organizations

510-639-1444 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              510-639-1444      end_of_the_skype_highlighting x 303

510-459-4130 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              510-459-4130      end_of_the_skype_highlighting (cel)

afitzgerald@oaklandcommunity.org

http://www.oaklandcommunity.org

About Ryan Van Lenning
Ryan Van Lenning is a writer and organizer focusing on issues of social justice and sustainability. He is also passionate about food justice/urban ag, anti-militarism, and building alternative economies in resilient cities. His work appears in Ecolocalizer, Truthout, Huffington Post, Terrain: Northern California’s Environmental Magazine, and Matador Change. Prior to becoming caught in the web of Bay Area ink-slinging and activism, he taught in the Humanities Department at a community college in Ohio, where he created courses in Environmental Ethics and World Religions: Peace and Violence. He is both a hyper-localist and a globalist, a home-body and travel-addict, and a city explorer and nature aficionado, just a few of the many paradoxes with which he is afflicted. Contact him at ryan@oaklandlocal.com, follow him on twitter @vanlenning, and find more at his blogs Pull the Root, Travelin' Bones, and Rumi and the Cholo.