Thanks for this D.O. I agree that the recall effort is reactionary and won't fix anything. I'm looking forward to your take on a three pronged approach that can guide us forward together to address the recent crime spike in our Town. We yearn for collective healing and bridge building, and less venomous blame spitting.
I agree with this and have usually been the voice of caution in my circles that the DA 1) hasn’t actually that radically changed policies, 2) hasn’t really had the duration in office to have significantly impacted that much, and 3) the situation won’t materially change after she’s gone. And I’m probably best described as a political moderate. I just care about practical impacts, especially since I live here.
I basically said the same about Chesa Boudin, even with all of his head scratching statements.
One thing about both him and Pamela Price (vs Gascón especially) is why are they both so terrible at public statements? From their actual job performance or actions, I’d say they don’t deserve the slings and arrows they received. As political figures, which they are as elected officials, they’re quite awful at reassuring the community and not sounding completely disconnected/tone-dead. Which really doesn’t help their actual cause either--it just gives progressive prosecutors a bad name and taints public perception of the movement. This includes reading their actual statements and listening to interviews when available, not just what’s filtered through media headlines (which I agree are quite slanted against them).
I think some progressive DAs struggle to transition from representing their ideological priors to governing in their messaging. Bigger campaigns usually have different election, transition and governing teams for this reason. Winning an election is not necessarily a validation of all your beliefs and you have to work to communicate to the many passive voters your plans who dont speak in progressive language.
And Price is trying to put Butch Ford in jail for leaking this racist conduct to the press on a BS retaliatory charge. That kind of nixonian behavior is enough to recall Price whatever her underlying behavior.
I think it’s fair to say getting rid of Price won’t stop the crime, but by failing to charge and incarcerate the few criminals OPD does catch she’s making it worse. and unlike other fixes like adding more social spending and police coverage, a better DA would not cost anything more than what we are paying price.
How can you say that victims are telling you she isn’t doing a good job? I’ve spoken to several victims to support Price and found her to do far more for victims than O’Malley ever did. Listen to the words of a mother whose son was murdered while sitting at a bus stop:
“The families of other victims have jumped to Price’s defense. Carol Ferguson Jones is the mother of Patrick Demarco Scott Jr., a disabled man who was killed at a bus stop near his South Berkeley home in 2018, in a case that remains unsolved. She said she felt neglected by O’Malley’s office, receiving no answers for years—until Price stepped into office.
“For five years, I've been trying to get in touch with the DA,” Jones said. “[Price] answered my call. She didn’t have to do what she did, but she did. Now I feel a little sense of ‘I can move on now.’ She opened up many doors, doors that should have been opened earlier.”
Also DA Price does not decide who gets released and who does not, therefore, she is not releasing dangerous, violent criminals. The Superior Court judge assigned to the court where people first appear after they are arrested decides whether a person who is accused of a violent crime is required to post bail or will be held without bail. The Sheriff maintains custody of the person until the judge makes a decision. It seems you are the one who’s lying, not Price.
"Nor do I buy the “anti-police sentiment harming police morale”
How would you explain the increases in retirements and transfers, and more importantly, the difficulty recruiting new officers?
Speculating how various professions should feel based on public polling is nice and all, but staffing and hiring is where the rubber meets the road. If no one wants to sign up to be an OPD officer, maybe there really is a morale problem. And note that this is a common problem in big cities across America; Oakland is no outlier.
If Oakland is a partially impoverished city, in need of investment, why are less of its residents than ever willing to sign up for a job with high pay and an opportunity to directly help the community they are part of?
And sorry to keep posting but from someone who used to be a public defender before she got sick of just pleading people out (they were invariably guilty, which got old for different reasons, but the ones with 4th amendment violations shouldn’t have been convicted), this is just factually wrong: “Frankly, most criminals are neither educated or smart, so the idea they’re reading the sentencing nuances of a district attorney’s platform 99% can’t even name is absurd”
Professionals aren’t stupid, and they figure out fairly quickly when you can get a good deal out of a DA. I used to be a public defender and repeat offenders know the nuances of sentencing and enhancements better than the lawyers - hell, I’ve seen clients correct the judge’s miscalculations.
And on the defund thing - what you’re missing is that to have equivalent police coverage of NYC or Chicago, Oakland needs about 1000 officers. OPD has been defunded since the receivership basically - not due to maliciousness but bc Oakland is so mismanaged we underfund everything and the rest goes to pensions and insider contracts. Which you’ve written about before so it’s frustrating to see you repeat a bunch of the pro-price myths here.
70% of incarcerated Americans cant read at a 4th grade level in 2003. A second round of research from 2014 finds very basicl level 2 literacy by PIAAC standards in prison are less than half of the standard population. The DOJ has long highlighted the link between drop out and literacy education and crime. Yes Oakland and many cities might have experienced criminals but our highest profile cases such as the freeway shooting or juvenile robberies are likely linked to this issue of poor education.
Totally correct but there is no fixing the root causes unless there is revolution at the federal level and republicans are replaced with Swedish-style social democrats.
When there is no fixing the root causes, what role do you see incarceration and law enforcement playing in society?
I guess this is more of a diatribe than a response to your comment, but I think a revolutions would simply be followed by a counter-revolution, rinse-and-repeat until one side locked in power with some form of dictatorship.
The reason Sweden has that kind of government is that that's what the Swedes want. It's the government working in concert with the culture. It couldn't be imposed from above.
But the good news is any local community who wants to invest much larger resources in education could do it. Poor immigrant communities show it's possible with fairly modest $s. But in a wealthy, liberal state like California, education, mental health, etc. could be funded with its existing tax base and voters. In wealthy, liberal cities like SF or much of the bay, funding for social services is much closer to W Europe levels than elsewhere in the US, but the outcomes aren't necessarily that much closer. The missing pieces are cultural, at least in my opinion. The people of Oakland have the all the potential needed to fix Oakland's problems. The federal government should be the last resort.
I think you’re totally correct within your factual assumptions, but I see the facts differently. I bring up the federal government bc i see Oakland crime as a regional problem - a lot of the serious violent property crime in Oakland are a small number of organized professionals who are coming here from Richmond and the valley bc it’s safer to do crime here than in those places. Oakland can maybe if we get extremely lucky fix Oakland’s own problems but we will never have the $ to fix root causes in Stockton, Modesto, and Antioch. And if we don’t do that the only thing that will send those professionals to do crime other places is having a better police force than our neighbors, and that’s not happening in my lifetime.
This is a good point. It reminds me of a point DO made within the original post on how Boudin's recall hasn't fixed SF's crime problem. I also think that's a good point, but it's a bit overstated b/c of course criminals can drive across a bridge to get in trouble or move around. There does need to be at least a regional view.
It's also why I think it's fair to blame Price for Oakland's problems even if crime isn't increasing in the other 75% of the county. Public policy will never be one-size-fits-all, and what works for Berkeley may not work for Oakland, but if she's the DA for both she has to be responsible for both.
I agree with you both that Oaklands problems often are regional problems and people take advantage of Oaklands substandard enforcement. For example, sideshow participants are often from LA or the Central Valley. But what id argue is it equally requires regional solutions because we can abstract solutions to any level of government lower than and above the DAs office.
1) a super majority of prisoners the US cant read at an adult level, not 99% thats a rhetorical exaggeration, but around 70%. Some criminals are smart and know what they're doing but I highly doubt your rank-n-file robber understands the prosecutorial differences between committing crime in Contra Costa vs Alameda for example. If there's evidence to the contrary i'd be happy to read it.
2) My understanding is that major police departments on the West Coast have generally not had police forces to the size of NYC because of how sprawled we are. NYC is mostly on foot patrols and thats not as practical in most of Oakland or LA. But i dont follow how the recievership issue is the fault of Pamela Price and not OPD conforming to DOJ standards over a 2003 case.
1) I’m surprised you think people without formal education won’t respond to incentives rationally but ok
(2) nothing to do with price at all - that was a response to to it point re defund not gaining any traction in Oakland. What i was saying is that what you wrote is correct (putting aside Kalb and others cutting police classes before realizing there’s nothing left to cut) but it’s bc OPD has been 30-40% below where it needs to be for decades, and we are losing officers on net every year. Defund won around the time of the receivership. Absent a giant federal block matching grant to hire more cops there’s no fixing that.
1) I think their incentives are a lot more nuanced than the specifics of Pamela Price's prosecutorial strategy of smaller sentencing time. Even the high profile instances of judges letting high risk suspects out before isnt relates to Price, which is the point.
"It’s sad too because crime is serious both emotionally and physically."
And financially. I've seen estimates of the community costs of a single murder that range from 2.5 to 17 million. With it's high COL Oakland probably pays more, in dollar terms, than most places. My back-of-the-envelope math places the cost of murder alone at 10% of Oakland's operating budget. Of course, much of that cost is born by the state, but murder is not the only crime either.
Fixing crime would allow communities to fix so many other problems
Thanks for this D.O. I agree that the recall effort is reactionary and won't fix anything. I'm looking forward to your take on a three pronged approach that can guide us forward together to address the recent crime spike in our Town. We yearn for collective healing and bridge building, and less venomous blame spitting.
I agree with this and have usually been the voice of caution in my circles that the DA 1) hasn’t actually that radically changed policies, 2) hasn’t really had the duration in office to have significantly impacted that much, and 3) the situation won’t materially change after she’s gone. And I’m probably best described as a political moderate. I just care about practical impacts, especially since I live here.
I basically said the same about Chesa Boudin, even with all of his head scratching statements.
One thing about both him and Pamela Price (vs Gascón especially) is why are they both so terrible at public statements? From their actual job performance or actions, I’d say they don’t deserve the slings and arrows they received. As political figures, which they are as elected officials, they’re quite awful at reassuring the community and not sounding completely disconnected/tone-dead. Which really doesn’t help their actual cause either--it just gives progressive prosecutors a bad name and taints public perception of the movement. This includes reading their actual statements and listening to interviews when available, not just what’s filtered through media headlines (which I agree are quite slanted against them).
I think some progressive DAs struggle to transition from representing their ideological priors to governing in their messaging. Bigger campaigns usually have different election, transition and governing teams for this reason. Winning an election is not necessarily a validation of all your beliefs and you have to work to communicate to the many passive voters your plans who dont speak in progressive language.
When they share their honest unfiltered opinion it’s one of hate - here is them not charging someone who attacked a Samoan man bc of racist stereotypes of Samoans https://abc7news.com/amp/alameda-county-district-attorneys-office-samoan-descent-alleged-racist-comment-prosecutor-butch-ford/13114878/
And Price is trying to put Butch Ford in jail for leaking this racist conduct to the press on a BS retaliatory charge. That kind of nixonian behavior is enough to recall Price whatever her underlying behavior.
How can you say this: “There’s no evidence provided that Pamela Price is letting out criminals who will re-offend”
When she:
(1) released all of those teens beating up old women for sport? https://www.ktvu.com/news/insufficeint-evidence-to-charge-9-youths-for-string-of-east-bay-robberies-da-says.amp
(You know she is lying about the lack of evidence because there are numerous eyewitnesses and double-digit victims)
and (2) And when victims are telling you she isn’t doing her job? https://www.berkeleyscanner.com/2023/06/25/courts/victim-families-criticize-pamela-price-they-didnt-fight-for-us/
I think it’s fair to say getting rid of Price won’t stop the crime, but by failing to charge and incarcerate the few criminals OPD does catch she’s making it worse. and unlike other fixes like adding more social spending and police coverage, a better DA would not cost anything more than what we are paying price.
How can you say that victims are telling you she isn’t doing a good job? I’ve spoken to several victims to support Price and found her to do far more for victims than O’Malley ever did. Listen to the words of a mother whose son was murdered while sitting at a bus stop:
“The families of other victims have jumped to Price’s defense. Carol Ferguson Jones is the mother of Patrick Demarco Scott Jr., a disabled man who was killed at a bus stop near his South Berkeley home in 2018, in a case that remains unsolved. She said she felt neglected by O’Malley’s office, receiving no answers for years—until Price stepped into office.
“For five years, I've been trying to get in touch with the DA,” Jones said. “[Price] answered my call. She didn’t have to do what she did, but she did. Now I feel a little sense of ‘I can move on now.’ She opened up many doors, doors that should have been opened earlier.”
https://sfstandard.com/2023/04/24/as-talk-of-a-recall-grows-supporters-of-alameda-da-pamela-price-push-back/
If we’re going to talk about victims, we should include the victims who are supporting Price in the discussion. More about how Price serves victims: https://www.davisvanguard.org/2023/11/office-of-alameda-da-helped-more-than-22500-victims-and-their-families-in-2023/
Also DA Price does not decide who gets released and who does not, therefore, she is not releasing dangerous, violent criminals. The Superior Court judge assigned to the court where people first appear after they are arrested decides whether a person who is accused of a violent crime is required to post bail or will be held without bail. The Sheriff maintains custody of the person until the judge makes a decision. It seems you are the one who’s lying, not Price.
"Nor do I buy the “anti-police sentiment harming police morale”
How would you explain the increases in retirements and transfers, and more importantly, the difficulty recruiting new officers?
Speculating how various professions should feel based on public polling is nice and all, but staffing and hiring is where the rubber meets the road. If no one wants to sign up to be an OPD officer, maybe there really is a morale problem. And note that this is a common problem in big cities across America; Oakland is no outlier.
If Oakland is a partially impoverished city, in need of investment, why are less of its residents than ever willing to sign up for a job with high pay and an opportunity to directly help the community they are part of?
And sorry to keep posting but from someone who used to be a public defender before she got sick of just pleading people out (they were invariably guilty, which got old for different reasons, but the ones with 4th amendment violations shouldn’t have been convicted), this is just factually wrong: “Frankly, most criminals are neither educated or smart, so the idea they’re reading the sentencing nuances of a district attorney’s platform 99% can’t even name is absurd”
Professionals aren’t stupid, and they figure out fairly quickly when you can get a good deal out of a DA. I used to be a public defender and repeat offenders know the nuances of sentencing and enhancements better than the lawyers - hell, I’ve seen clients correct the judge’s miscalculations.
And on the defund thing - what you’re missing is that to have equivalent police coverage of NYC or Chicago, Oakland needs about 1000 officers. OPD has been defunded since the receivership basically - not due to maliciousness but bc Oakland is so mismanaged we underfund everything and the rest goes to pensions and insider contracts. Which you’ve written about before so it’s frustrating to see you repeat a bunch of the pro-price myths here.
70% of incarcerated Americans cant read at a 4th grade level in 2003. A second round of research from 2014 finds very basicl level 2 literacy by PIAAC standards in prison are less than half of the standard population. The DOJ has long highlighted the link between drop out and literacy education and crime. Yes Oakland and many cities might have experienced criminals but our highest profile cases such as the freeway shooting or juvenile robberies are likely linked to this issue of poor education.
https://nces.ed.gov/naal/prison_lit.asp
Totally correct but there is no fixing the root causes unless there is revolution at the federal level and republicans are replaced with Swedish-style social democrats.
When there is no fixing the root causes, what role do you see incarceration and law enforcement playing in society?
I guess this is more of a diatribe than a response to your comment, but I think a revolutions would simply be followed by a counter-revolution, rinse-and-repeat until one side locked in power with some form of dictatorship.
The reason Sweden has that kind of government is that that's what the Swedes want. It's the government working in concert with the culture. It couldn't be imposed from above.
But the good news is any local community who wants to invest much larger resources in education could do it. Poor immigrant communities show it's possible with fairly modest $s. But in a wealthy, liberal state like California, education, mental health, etc. could be funded with its existing tax base and voters. In wealthy, liberal cities like SF or much of the bay, funding for social services is much closer to W Europe levels than elsewhere in the US, but the outcomes aren't necessarily that much closer. The missing pieces are cultural, at least in my opinion. The people of Oakland have the all the potential needed to fix Oakland's problems. The federal government should be the last resort.
I think you’re totally correct within your factual assumptions, but I see the facts differently. I bring up the federal government bc i see Oakland crime as a regional problem - a lot of the serious violent property crime in Oakland are a small number of organized professionals who are coming here from Richmond and the valley bc it’s safer to do crime here than in those places. Oakland can maybe if we get extremely lucky fix Oakland’s own problems but we will never have the $ to fix root causes in Stockton, Modesto, and Antioch. And if we don’t do that the only thing that will send those professionals to do crime other places is having a better police force than our neighbors, and that’s not happening in my lifetime.
This is a good point. It reminds me of a point DO made within the original post on how Boudin's recall hasn't fixed SF's crime problem. I also think that's a good point, but it's a bit overstated b/c of course criminals can drive across a bridge to get in trouble or move around. There does need to be at least a regional view.
It's also why I think it's fair to blame Price for Oakland's problems even if crime isn't increasing in the other 75% of the county. Public policy will never be one-size-fits-all, and what works for Berkeley may not work for Oakland, but if she's the DA for both she has to be responsible for both.
I agree with you both that Oaklands problems often are regional problems and people take advantage of Oaklands substandard enforcement. For example, sideshow participants are often from LA or the Central Valley. But what id argue is it equally requires regional solutions because we can abstract solutions to any level of government lower than and above the DAs office.
1) a super majority of prisoners the US cant read at an adult level, not 99% thats a rhetorical exaggeration, but around 70%. Some criminals are smart and know what they're doing but I highly doubt your rank-n-file robber understands the prosecutorial differences between committing crime in Contra Costa vs Alameda for example. If there's evidence to the contrary i'd be happy to read it.
2) My understanding is that major police departments on the West Coast have generally not had police forces to the size of NYC because of how sprawled we are. NYC is mostly on foot patrols and thats not as practical in most of Oakland or LA. But i dont follow how the recievership issue is the fault of Pamela Price and not OPD conforming to DOJ standards over a 2003 case.
1) I’m surprised you think people without formal education won’t respond to incentives rationally but ok
(2) nothing to do with price at all - that was a response to to it point re defund not gaining any traction in Oakland. What i was saying is that what you wrote is correct (putting aside Kalb and others cutting police classes before realizing there’s nothing left to cut) but it’s bc OPD has been 30-40% below where it needs to be for decades, and we are losing officers on net every year. Defund won around the time of the receivership. Absent a giant federal block matching grant to hire more cops there’s no fixing that.
1) I think their incentives are a lot more nuanced than the specifics of Pamela Price's prosecutorial strategy of smaller sentencing time. Even the high profile instances of judges letting high risk suspects out before isnt relates to Price, which is the point.
* before trial
"It’s sad too because crime is serious both emotionally and physically."
And financially. I've seen estimates of the community costs of a single murder that range from 2.5 to 17 million. With it's high COL Oakland probably pays more, in dollar terms, than most places. My back-of-the-envelope math places the cost of murder alone at 10% of Oakland's operating budget. Of course, much of that cost is born by the state, but murder is not the only crime either.
Fixing crime would allow communities to fix so many other problems