Urban Strategies Council is working with local and national partners to forge strategies and programs to improve public safety in low-income neighborhoods including developing and implementing effective strategies for: parolee reentry; violence prevention; and reducing low-income residents' involvement in the criminal justice system and decreasing the racial and ethnic disparities in their involvement. Recognizing the connections between economic opportunity and crime, the Council's Economic Opportunity Program Area also contributes to achieving the goals of the Community Safety and Justice Program Area.

Contact

Bill Heiser ( billh at urbanstrategies.org )

 

Current projects

Reentry

• Alameda County Reentry Initiatives Forum Materials: On February 28, 2007 Urban Strategies Council, the Community Reentry Service Providers Network and the Oakland Think Tank hosted the Alameda County Reentry Initiatives Forum. The Forum brought together representatives from the various reentry initiatives

• Community Report on Parole and Probation in Alameda County   provides basic information on the reentry population, their service needs, availability of services to meet their needs, and the costs of various strategies for public safety.  To learn more, please click here.  

• A Report on People under Criminal Justice Supervision in Alameda County provides information and data on people under parole supervision in Alameda County and adult and juvenile probationers under the active supervision of the Alameda County Probation department. To view the report, please click here.

• San Quentin Community and Prison Health Project: Focuses on improving reintegration of formerly incarcerated people back into the community after prison
  
• Oakland Parolee Reentry Roundtable: Developing a parolee reentry roundtable to plan and coordinate reentry programs and services
  

• Reentry Mapping Network: A reentry data and mapping project to increase the availability and use of data in reentry planning and assessment

Violence Prevention and Reduction

• Alameda County Violence Prevention Initiative: Working to develop a countywide blueprint for violence prevention and to collect and analyze data on violence and successful strategies for violence prevention

• Liqour and Crime: A preliminary report on the relationship between off-sale liquor outlets and crime in Oakland. Factsheet also available here.

• Oakland Homicide and Violence Research: Collection and analysis of data on Oakland's homicide rate in order to understand the context in which the homicides have risen including the patterns in other crimes and in social conditions
• Violent Crime In Richmond: Urban Strategies Council completed an analysis of Violent Crime in Richmond, California from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2006 in order to understand the context of violent crime as The City of Richmond is setting up an Office of Violence Prevention.

• According to the FBI's Annual Uniform Crime Report (UCR) for Oakland, Part 1 Violent Offenses continued to maintain their trend of decreasing per 100K Oakland residents.  This trend is also reflected for Part 1 Property Offenses. While homicides have the greatest impact on the community, the following charts show that they only account for a small percentage of the Violent Offenses in Oakland each year.  Homicides also tend mirror other violent offenses in Oakland per 100K residents.
  • Part 1 Violent Offenses
  • Part 1 Property Offenses

Community Education and Outreach

• California Police and Prison News: A service provided by the Urban Strategies Council to keep the community informed on media coverage of California's criminal justice system.
  

Contra Costa County and Richmond

• Violent Crime Report-Richmond: This is a report on Violent Crimes in Richmond which have occurred from January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2006. This report was commissioned by the Office of Violence Prevention Development Team to investigate the current and historical patterns of violent crime in the City of Richmond.
• Richmond population from 2000 census: These chart contain populaiton, and demographic data on Richmond, CA
• Leadership Contra Costa: On November 1, 2007 the Urban Strategies Council gave a presentation to Leadership Contra Costa on reentry and rehabilitation. The presentation contains data on the number of persons on parole in Contra Costa County and information on current reentry and rehabilitation initiatives.
• Office of Violence Prevention Proposal: In 2006 the Urban Strategies Council submitted a proposal to the Richmond City Council in response to an RFQ. This proposal includes data on Richmond and a framework for working to reduce violence in the city.

Special Projects

• Congressional Tri-Caucus Presentation: Urban Strategies Council’s analyses and recommendations to Congress on Improving Healthcare for the Incarcerated presented at the fifth Annual Congressional Tri-Caucus Health Summit in San Diego in July 2007.
• Rising Cost Of Incarceration:This fact sheet highlights the rising costs of incarceration and public spending on criminal justice.