The Oakland Police Department is remarkable for its impact on police science and for changing the way professionals, scientists, academics, and communities view effective policing. In the 1960s, America was struggling with social, political, and economic forces that surprised most institutions. Unemployment, declining urban tax revenues, limited educational opportunities, gender roles, and discrimination were being challenged and the government authority to implement policy was being questioned. Traditional manufacturing jobs were moving offshore, fair housing issues and Supreme Court decisions were altering traditional communities, and people, especially ethnic minorities and students, were questioning the practical reality of “equal” justice in America.
Oakland, during the 1960s, had more diversity of social change than most other venues. The city was exposed to radical challenges that changed the landscape— social activism, political action committees, and new types of crime and disorder, such as mass antiwar demonstrations. Oakland was the birthplace for the Black Panther Party (“Political Power Comes from the Barrel of a Gun”), the world headquarters of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang, and home to Asian gangs, the Symbionese Liberation Army (which was responsible for the assassination of Oakland’s Superintendent of Schools Dr. Marcus Foster), the Weather Underground, the American Communist Party, the John Birch Society, and many others. Many of these interest groups were in direct conflict with each other. Many police practices—laws of arrest and search and seizure—were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court; rulings on the exclusionary rule significantly impacted police. (Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during this turbulent era, had previously been a tough legalistic prosecutor from Oakland.)
Crime and protests were seen, by many, as instruments of social change and justice, subjecting police operations, policies, and demographics to intense controversy. Traditional police strategies and tactics came to be viewed as unfairly impacting specific ethnic groups. Justice institutions were not prepared to respond to social and political criticism. Criminal law and police tactics tend to lag behind rapid social progress, while activists tend to make radical demands for change. Many metropolitan centers, such as Los Angeles, Detroit, Newark, and Chicago, and university campuses such as Kent State in Ohio, experienced unprecedented social and moral conflicts and new forms of massive civil disorder and disobedience.
It was in this context that Oakland policy makers, police, business owners, and community leaders explored options to prevent an Oakland “meltdown into disorder, riots, loss of life and economic disaster.” The context, viewed in retrospect, created an unusual opportunity for a natural experiment. A confluence of unique circumstances and actions made possible a chance for some important lessons to be learned. The following briefly outlines a few of the historic pivotal actions.
In 1955, the City of Oakland recruited a young, innovative city manager who immediately appointed a reform-minded, college-educated chief to modernize and reorganize the police department using the best information available from police science research, management theory, and community participation. The city manager and the new chief used an upcoming municipal election to advocate a series of charter amendments intended to authorize major changes in the department— reorganizing the Criminal Investigations Division, closing decentralized stations, establishing standards of accountability by centralizing departmental operations in one headquarters, and forming new bureaus headed by three appointed (exempt rank) deputy chiefs. Under this chief, professionalism was introduced (upgrading academic requirements, introducing new in-service training, implementing a professional code of ethics—modeled on the Hippocratic oath—requiring the rule of law and exemplary professional and private conduct). The members of the department began to internalize the ideal of professionalism.
The professional style of policing needed a new organizational structure and a new kind of candidate for police officer—one who was able to apply legalistic principles to enforcement; the lack of residency requirement and reduced age of entry allowed for targeting college graduates in a nationwide recruitment effort. As the hallmark of professionalism is using research and analysis to inform policies, the chief enlisted the assistance of O. W. Wilson, dean of criminology at the University of California, Berkeley, who proposed creating special police units to research the root causes of problems in policing, apply modern technology to solutions,and undertake systematic planning for the future challenges. Oakland’s reforms launched the nation’s first police unit dedicated solely to planning, research, and problem solving. Wilson’s criminology students were recruited to staff and support this research capability and Dr. Kirk’s crime lab.
The four years of new leadership (19551959) brought profound changes to the Oakland Police Department, and a new group of leaders was subsequently appointed to accelerate the policing innovations. The new chief organized special duty units to suppress crime and develop the nationwide recruitment. Innovations in technologies were introduced including the “alco-test” (which led to a 22% increase in drunk driving arrests) and the 1965 adoption of the computer-driven Police Information Network System (PIN). This electronic retrieval system brought instant information to officers on patrol— the status of license numbers reported stolen from anywhere in California and whether a driver had active criminal warrants, was a dangerous fugitive, or had a criminal record. The computer age reduced the backlog of warrants and helped police recover stolen vehicles, arrest auto theft suspects, and warn of dangerous subjects.
Antiwar Demonstrations (1963-1973)
In 1964, when antiwar militants reached beyond the UC Berkeley campus, targeting the Oakland Army Base and Naval Supply Center—the embarkation point for 220,000 soldiers over four years—the Oakland Police Department was directed to prevent unauthorized demonstrations, property damage, and injuries. The larger demonstrations (eight to twelve thousand militants) were a public safety risk that could result in large-scale property damage and violence to surrounding Oakland communities and businesses. Innovation and expert crowd control became a departmental trademark, recognized in policing circles as the best practice.
Civil Rights/Community Relations (1960-1966)
The chief decided to involve the department more extensively in improving the quality of life in Oakland’s communities. This initiative went beyond speeches to participation in civic and service groups. There were increasing complaints from the black communities that legalistic policing had a disproportionately negative impact on its members, including its youths. The chief moved to create a meaningful dialog with the groups who were most affected by such problems. Top officials and commanders were required to personally attend community meetings and report comments, complaints, recommendations, and problems raised at these meetings. In 1964, the chief created a Community Relations Section to systematically document these efforts. There is significant testimony validating the department’s progress with minority groups; the department was not viewed as oppressive or engaging in systematic or institutional abuse. Complaints and reports of misconduct were investigated by internal affairs and reported back to community groups.
The police leaders were confronted with an activist call for an independent civilian review board. The succeeding chief worked to instill a sense of mission for law enforcement in terms of service to the whole community. The chief believed (as research suggested) that problems of racial tension and citizen distrust could be resolved through in-person contacts. The chief personally led a series of behind-the-scenes meetings between police and juvenile gang leaders to prevent looting and vandalism in downtown Oakland. In 1966, the chief was praised by the mayor for dealing with the youth disturbances in East Oakland “with patience and calm restraint” while making clear that “the laws would be enforced justly.”
Professional Credibility and Openness to Senior Academic Studies (1962-1969)
In the midst of dynamic police reorganization and social conflicts, the department leaders and chief granted permission to UC Berkeley professor Jerome Skolnick to perform a sociological analysis of law enforcement processes and decision making in Oakland. The chief set a single re-striction—”that the analysis be objective and truthful.” Dr. Skolnick spent more than two years observing the judgments, decisions, actions, and consequences of officers in daily enforcement situations. The subsequent analysis was published in a popular topic Justice Without Trial. He observed the inherent tension between “law” and ”order.” Accordingly, ”due process” and ”enforcing the law” require discretionary judgments rather than universal application of a single standard of perfect procedures.
Dr. James Q. Wilson studied officers in eight different police agencies, focusing on departmental differences in applying police discretion to balance the needs for maintaining order and enforcing the law. Wilson distinguished police styles grouped in three typologies: watchman, legalistic, and service styles. Wilson interpreted the changes in Oakland’s new policing style to be legalistic (single standard of community conduct). His analysis revealed some fundamental reasons for friction between the department and different elements of the community. He pointed out that the department’s reforms (except for civil rights and community relations) really did not address the question of how to provide policing services to increasingly diverse communities with different needs and expectations for justice.
An analysis of the Oakland Police Department is presented in the text Police: The Street Corner Politicians by William Muir, a UC professor of political science. This study examines the range of moral, social, and political issues through “the moral development of young officers as they try to come to terms with the problem of how to achieve just ends with coercive means.”
These studies produced debate and resulted in new programs aimed at family crisis intervention, violence prevention, and landlord-tenant dispute resolutions. These initiatives led the department into the “progressive era” of training and partnering with referral agencies to provide effective resolutions not requiring criminal court actions. Professor Muir attributes Chief Gain (1967-1973) as transforming the department from a legalistic style to a service-oriented style of policing. Since the community reacted negatively to police shootings of fleeing persons, Chief Gain changed the department’s firearms discharge policies. The new policy prohibited using a firearm other than to protect the officer’s life or that of a citizen. Police were no longer authorized to shoot fleeing burglary or auto theft suspects or persons under age eighteen. This policy was extremely controversial but became institutionalized. Chief Gain significantly expanded the training of new and in-service officers to teach officers the reasoning employed in Supreme Court decisions and to get officers to work in harmony with evolving interpretation of the laws affecting police powers. The chief was explicit and adamant in his call for stopping all harassment of minorities; officers were under the threat of termination if they did not abide by antiharassment policies.
The Evolution of Policing Strategy: Beyond the 1960s
Chief Hart (a UC graduate who achieved the fastest career promotion of any chief), created an entirely radical policing strategy referred to as the ”beat health concept.” This concept, founded on operations analysis and personal identification with the beat conditions by the patrol officer, is potentially the most striking innovation and is considered the initiative that changed Oakland—and the field of police science—enormously for the better.
Since patrol officers spend more time on their patrol beats than they do in their own homes, they ought to treat the beat as their own neighborhood. The concept encourages frequent interactions with the community residents and participation in the life of the community, rather than focusing only on enforcing the law. The beat health concept anticipates the insights of James Q. Wilson’s influential article on “broken windows” by almost seven years. The beat health approach has a legitimate claim to leading the strategic emergence of community policing and problem-oriented policing.
The success of the Oakland Police Department’s transformation and its influence on policing across America are based on both police science and human organization. The chiefs and leaders of this department tried new and highly innovative operations and procedures. These models, informed by research, planning, and analysis, empowered the institution to change. Chiefs used a range of levers to redirect the department and guide its path in the uncharted waters of new social crises and conflicts.
The results of this era are well documented. The legacy is a better, more dedicated police department focused on bringing the Constitution to the streets and a better quality of life to the city’s communities. The graduates of the Oakland Police Department’s progressive era are now leaders of federal agencies and chiefs of progressive departments and are dedicated to using research and analysis to enhance law enforcement operations and policies.
