For the past 5 years, APTP’s Defund OPD committee has been leading the call to defund the police and invest in our communities. Our work has grown into the Defund Police Coalition with 13 BIPOC-led grassroots organizations* dedicated to refunding, restoring, and reimagining Oakland.
OPD takes almost HALF of Oakland's general fund each year, and that percentage has skyrocketed in the past two decades — consuming desperately needed resources from essential city programs and vital services.
The investment in policing has not made us safer. OPD remains an embarrassment to the city and a lethal threat to Oakland’s Black and Brown communities.
We can create safer communities if we are willing to have an openness to imagine and the financial investment to match.
* The Defund Police Coalition consists of the following groups: Anti Police-Terror Project, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Bay Rising, Black Organizing Project, Causa Justa-Just Cause, Community Ready Corps, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, Critical Resistance, East Bay Alliance for A Sustainable Economy, Ella Baker Center, Oakland Rising, and the Urban Peace Movement.
How does OPD spend its time?
The Oakland Police Department, the Oakland Police Officers Association (OPOA), and neo-liberal electeds would have you believe that police will lose time to fight violent crime if their budget is cut.
The Anti Police-Terror Project commissioned a study by AH Datalytics to analyze how the Oakland Police Department spends its time. Below is a list of key findings.
Violence: The violent crime category made up 4.2% of all calls using the National Incident Based Response System Definition.
Medical: Medical Calls for Service added up to 10% of total calls (44,231) at a median of just under 42 minutes of time spent per call. This category includes:
Medical (5.7%)
Mental Health (2.8%)
Suicide (0.4%)
Welfare Check (1.4%)
Traffic: 12.6% of all calls for service are related to traffic.
3.8% of those calls are related to accidents with a median call time of over an hour.
3.5% are related to enforcement with a median call time of just under 24 minutes.
Unfounded/Hangups:11.4% of all calls are hang-ups or are determined to be unfounded at a median call time of 0:17:31
Disturbances: 10.8% of all calls (47,734) are for various types of “disturbances” that include, among other subcategories, a variety of noise complaints.
Alarms: 4.3% of all calls for service (19,150) are generated from alarms. Of those calls, at least 65% are coded as false or cancelled.