OHAPD’s Nationally-Recognized Community Policing Program
The success of the OHAPD Community Policing Approach is
simple: we empower the public housing community in changing our residents from
the inside out. Our success in partnership is a sense of equality, mutual
respect and trust.
Some community policing strategies, such as foot patrol,
resemble policing of years past.
Community is not just another “tack on” program that requires new
resources. It is a philosophy, a management style, and an organizational design
that promotes police-community partnerships and proactive problem-solving
strategies. It is a different way of looking at policing.
In 1992, in response to a high rate of homicides and other
crimes in an area of Oakland that included two of our largest housing
developments, the Oakland Housing Authority Police Department (OHAPD)
introduced a method of community policing designed to encourage residents and
officers to work together to reduce crime. The results were dramatic; almost as
soon as the program was introduced homicides in the area stopped. In fact, from
1992 until 2000 there were no homicides there, and since then there have been
only a few. The program was recognized on national television, and Attorney
General Janet Reno visited the area twice to see the transformation for
herself.
So what is the clue to OHAPD’s phenomenal success? What sets
it apart from other community policing programs? Is theirs a new approach?
Some community policing strategies, such as foot patrol,
resemble policing of years past. Our Community Policing program goes beyond
that; it is a philosophy, a management style, and an organizational design that
promotes police-community partnerships and hands-on problem-solving strategies.
It is a different way of looking at policing.
Our program redefines the roles of the community and police
and the relationships between them. Both share responsibility for social order
and work cooperatively to identify problems and develop practical,
community-wide solutions throughout the public housing population.
- Our program acknowledges that we cannot do the job of public
safety alone and recognizes that we have valuable resources available in our
community.
- OHAPD’s program uses a model called “Health Realization,”
which recognizes that communities are naturally resilient and that their
members have the ability to identify and solve their own problems.
- Community empowerment occurs when we enlist our residents in
identifying their problems, determining their own solutions to them, and then
working together with law enforcement to make positive changes. Only then do
they truly have charge of their own destinies
- The key to the success of the OHAPD Community Policing
approach is simple. We empower the public housing community to change their
lives from the inside out. We create a partnership with the community and they
gain a sense of equality, mutual respect, and trust.