Criminal
Justice Winter 2005
policing - prison closure
- violence intervention
Challenging
Police Lockdown of Oakland Neighborhoods
 |
| Photo
courtesy of Critical Resistance. |
Oakland
Mayor Jerry Brown's crusade to crack down on sideshows and
open-air drug markets has reached new lows. In an attempt
to make Oakland safer the Mayor, with the support of most
of the City Council, has stepped up efforts at harassing
motorists and youth of color through Operation Impact. According
to Sitara Nieves, Critical Resistance National Development
Organizer, the operation is "a policing program where
the Oakland Police Department, the California Highway Patrol,
and Alameda County Sheriff's Department pool their resources
to lock down an entire neighborhood for a few days, stopping
drivers and confiscating their cars for minor infractions
like broken tail lights or loud music…" Critical
Resistance is working on a campaign to stop Operation
Impact, and has launched an East Oakland cop watch to document
police abuses and organize to stop Operation Impact. The
DataCenter has helped by working with Critical Resistance
to get information on the number of cars the Oakland Police
Department and City Attorney's Office have seized and the
amount of money they've collected through car auctions.
For
further information see: Critical
Resistance
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Close
the California Youth Authority
For over a year Books Not
Bars "Alternatives for Youth" campaign has
been fighting in Sacramento and all over California to close
down the eight notorious youth prisons in the California
Youth Authority system. After years of stories of youth
dying while in custody and being subjected to cruel punishments
and inhumane searches, Books not Bars has started organizing
families with youth in the CYA and allies in a campaign
to close the prisons and open local rehabilitation centers
and expand community-based alternatives in their place.
The DataCenter has helped with research on juvenile arrest
trends and possible county alternatives to CYA incarceration.
For further information see: Books
Not Bars
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Community-based
Options to End Interpersonal Violence
DataCenter
is collaborating with Creative Interventions and Generation
Five on a National Story Collecting Project to collect
stories from people who have participated in a successful
community-based intervention to interpersonal violence including
domestic violence, sexual abuse and child abuse. Success
is defined as an intervention that ended or reduced violence
or was otherwise satisfying to the survivor of abuse, and
whose intervention was not primarily dependent on the police
or other public system.
Based in Oakland, CA, Creative Interventions helps communities
end and prevent family, intimate partner and other forms
of interpersonal violence through community accountability
strategies. Generation Five is a national organization working
to end child sexual abuse through community organizing.
Initiated and led by Creative Interventions, the National
Story Collecting project is part of Generation Five's Transformative
Justice project, working to evolve community-based alternatives
to end violence by supporting community and social transformation
of conditions that collude in and perpetuate violence.
The goals of this community-based research include documenting
and sharing stories from many diverse cultures and situations
of abuse, learning from these stories about what can make
these interventions successful, and increasing community
capacity to end violence using resources within social and
community networks. DC has provided support in creating
the methodology and tools for the project, and will also
help in compiling and analyzing data.
To participate in the National Story Collecting Project
as a story teller or story collector or to get more information,
contact Creative Interventions at stories@creative-interventions.org
or tel: 510.452.8595. For more information about the project,
see www.creative-interventions.org.
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