Nearly 50 Organizations Sign On to Defund OPD & Reimagine Public Safety
June 17, 2021
Dear Oakland City Council,
As community based organizations, labor organizations, faith based organizations, and public interest groups and associations, we join Anti Police-Terror Project’s (APTP) and the Defund Police Coalition’s call to refund and reinvest in a stronger and safer Oakland by defunding the Oakland Police Department by 50%.
We believe that Oaklanders deserve strong investments in life-affirming resources like community-based and -led programs and services that foster increased health, safety, and wellbeing for all our residents. We cannot continue to risk and reduce these critical initiatives by prioritizing vast amounts of funding towards police.
In these times of increased violence toward Asian people, and the ongoing harm to Black, Indigenous, and communities of color, we need secure and affordable access to healthy food, quality housing, mental health resources, education, meaningful employment opportunities, and community-based responses to harm and gender violence.
As a first step, we urge City Council to adopt and implement the list of priority recommendations laid out by APTP and the Defund Police Coalition report and passed by the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force. These recommendations provide a roadmap for transforming public safety in Oakland by: investing in alternatives to law enforcement for mental health crises and other emergencies; moving 911 calls out of OPD; adequately funding gender-based violence prevention, response and survivor support services; decriminalizing sex work and homelessness and expanding harm reduction programs; funding street teams and violence interrupters in community and in schools; moving traffic enforcement out of OPD; capping OPD overtime; expanding restorative and transformative justice services; and eliminating wasteful spending on things like OPD’s mounted horse unit, BearCat armored vehicle and burglary alarm dispatch.
Police are violence responders, not violence interrupters. Studies, reports, and the lived experience of those impacted by policing unequivocally show us that police are not only ineffective at increasing community health and safety, but are one of the primary threats to the health and safety for marginalized communities.(1) Yet, Police departments everywhere often make up the largest portion of their municipal budgets. The Oakland Police Department eats up a staggering 45% of the city’s general fund – making it among the most disproportionately funded when compared to other major cities. This is why our communities are suffering: As a result of the hundreds of millions of dollars that are poured into policing each year, the basic necessities and resources that keep our communities safe, strong, and healthy are left to deteriorate.
We can create safer communities if we are willing to have an openness to imagine, and the financial investment to match our will. Let us come with open hearts, eyes, and ears and with an orientation towards creativity and possibility. Let us invest as aggressively in proven, community-based alternatives as we unfortunately have done in the punitive and violent systems of policing and incarceration for far too long.
We urge you to Refund, Restore, and Reimagine community safety and well being in Oakland.
Sincerely,
The Defund Police Coalition:
Anti Police-Terror Project
Arab Resource and Organizing Center
Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Black Organizing Project
Bay Rising
Causa Justa::Just Cause
Critical Resistance
Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice
Community Ready Corps
East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Faith Alliance for a Moral Economy
Oakland Rising
Urban Peace Movement
Alight Coaching and Consulting
Alliance of South Asians Taking Action
American Friends Service Committee
ANSWER Coalition
Asians4BlackLives
AYPAL: Building API Community Power
Bay Area Freedom Collective
Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective
Berkeley Copwatch
California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Communication Workers of America #9415
Community Works West
East Bay Meditation Center
Filipino Advocates for Justice
First Unitarian Church of Oakland
First Unitarian Church of Oakland Justice Team
Food Service Workers United For Power
HOPE Collaborative
IfNotNow Bay Area
Jewish Voice for Peace - Bay Area
Justice Teams Network
Mujeres Unidas y Activas
No Justice Under Capitalism
North Oakland Mutual AId
Oakland Abolition and Solidarity
One Fair Wage
Party for Socialism & Liberation - Bay Area
PYM Bay Area
Restore Oakland
Sunrise Bay Area
The East Oakland Collective
The Young Women's Freedom Center
Unitehere Local 2850
VietUnity Bay Area
YWCA Berkeley/Oakland
1. Addressing Law Enforcement Violence as a Public Health Issue. Policy Statement of the American Public Health Association, 2018. https://www.apha.org/policies-and-advocacy/public-health-policy-statements/policy-database/2019/01/29/law-enforcement-violence