Public Safety is a critical area of concern for any city. Though national conversations have recently brought a lot of attention to racial and ethnic disparities in public safety, this is a long-standing problem area that can have severe negative impacts on communities of color.

The Law Enforcement Topic includes three Indicators that measure disparities in police response times, stops, and use of force. The first Indicator measures disparities in police response times between Area 5 and Areas 1/3. This is a placeholder for this year that we plan to replace with an analysis of response times by police beat which can be more closely related to the racial and ethnic demographics of each beat. The second Indicator measures disparities in discretionary stops between African Americans and Asians. The third Indicator measures disparities in use of force between African Americans and Whites.

The Incarceration Topic includes three Indicators that measure racial and ethnic disparities in adult felony arrests, jail incarceration, and prison incarceration. The first Indicator measures disparities in adult felony arrests between African Americans and Asians. The second Indicator measures disparities in jail incarceration between African Americans and Asians. The third Indicator measures disparities in prison incarceration between African Americans and Asians. In all three indicator areas the disparities between African American and White residents were nearly as large.

The Staffing Topic includes three Indicators that measure racial and ethnic disparities in OPD sworn staff representation, attrition from academy, and attrition from field training. The first Indicator measures disparities in how well OPD sworn staff represent the demographics of Oakland, specifically between Whites and African Americans. The second Indicator measures disparities in attrition from academy between African Americans and Whites. The third Indicator measures disparities in attrition from field training between Latinos/Asians and Whites.

The Community Stressors Topic includes three Indicators that measure racial and ethnic disparities in domestic violence, homicides, and juvenile felony arrests. The first Indicator measures disparities in domestic violence victimization between African Americans and Asians. The second Indicator measures disparities in homicides between African Americans and Asians. The third Indicator measures disparities in juvenile felony arrests between African Americans and Whites.

Last updated July 8, 2020.

This dataset includes street segments included in the City of Oakland Slow Streets Program. This program started with a pilot effort launching Saturday, April 11th with "soft closures" including signage, traffic cones and barricades. It began with candidates streets identified as existing or proposed neighborhood bike routes in Oakland's Bike Plan and later inclueded other streets.

More information at https://www.oaklandca.gov/projects/oakland-slow-streets.

This Indicator measures the median response times of calls for service that were routed to patrol. The measurement is broken down between Priority 1 and Priority 2 calls as well as by police area. Priority 1 Calls are defined as those that include potential danger for serious injury to persons, prevention of violent crimes, serious public hazards, felonies in progress with possible suspect on scene. Priority 2 Calls are defined as urgent but not an emergency situation, hazardous / sensitive matters, in-progress misdemeanors and crimes where quick response may facilitate apprehension of suspect(s). There are 5 police areas in Oakland each of which consist of a defined set of police beats and therefore cover a specific geographic part of Oakland. For more information and maps of areas, see here: http://www2.oaklandnet.com/government/o/OPD/o/BFO/index.htm

This Indicator measures the rate of adult felony arrests by race/ethnicity adjusted for population. Rate is calculated as the number of adult felony arrests per 100,000 people of each race/ethnicity that are 18 years of age and older. To determine the number of adults of each race/ethnicity in Oakland, we took the population by race/ethnicity for all ages and multiplied by the percent of Oakland’s population that is 18 and over (80.33%). This approach was necessary due to the lack of exact data available on the 18 and over population in Oakland by race/ethnicity.

This Indicator measures the rate of use of force on subjects per 100,000 people in Oakland by race/ethnicity. Note: There were 10 incidents of use of force that were on a crowd. For these incidents, the number and race/ethnicity of subjects were not available. Therefore, each was counted as one incident in the Citywide total. This will somewhat undercount the true total of people subjected to use of force and will potentially misrepresent the true racial and ethnic breakdown as well.

This Indicator measures the rate of homicides in Oakland by race/ethnicity. Rate is calculated as the number of homicides per 100,000 people of the same race/ethnicity (of any age).