Oakland Violence Prevention Program

Oakland ended 2021 with 134 homicides and 1,656 shootings with injury, its most violent year since 2006. The majority of these violent incidents are driven by conflicts between violent groups or social networks, and underlying these incidents is a highly fractured relationship between impacted communities and city government. To reduce the likelihood of future violence and improve relationships between community and city government, the City of Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention (DVP) administers three primary violent incident crisis response services: (1) violence interruption; (2) hospital-based response; and (3) a 24/7 response to shootings and homicides known as the triangle incident response. The current grant will fund a full-time program analyst for 17 months to support implementation of the DVP’s crisis response activities through administrative support and contract management. Specifically, the program analyst will manage contracts with eight community-based organizations that are funded through the DVP to hire and supervise violence interrupters and hospital-based responders, which will involve reviewing and processing quarterly invoices, tracking service metrics in relation to contract deliverables, and ensuring that grantees are regularly entering accurate and timely service delivery data into the DVP’s data management system. The full-time program analyst will also provide administrative support to violence interrupters and crime scene response advocates who participate in the TIR by developing agendas and documents for TIR coordination meetings, coordinating financial support for families and victims, supporting crime scene response advocates in making referrals for families and victims to needed services and resources, and reviewing TIR data recorded in the DVP’s data management system to ensure accuracy and follow-through on response activities. The grant-funded program analyst position will support the Byrne Discretionary Grant Program’s objectives of improving the capacity of the criminal justice system to plan, manage, and allocate resources and assisting victims of crime through support other than compensation. Grant outcomes will focus on determining the extent to which violent incident crisis response activities reduce future violence perpetration and victimization and increase trust community members and city government.