This study seeks to provide data and recommendations that can help to coalesce a direction for Oakland to improve public safety and restore economic and budget stability. The following chapters rely on data points that clearly tie the city’s fiscal crisis to its crime crisis through surveying and city-provided data. Additionally, 45 interviews with law enforcement agencies, city and county staff, businesses, public safety experts, and community groups were completed to better understand the unique public safety challenges that Oakland faces. Comparisons to other cities are used throughout the report to highlight best practices that could be applicable to Oakland. The study concludes with recommendations for ways the City of Oakland – its elected leaders, governing bodies, and private sector entities – can make improvements that would make the city a safer place to live, work, and visit.
Making Oakland Safe and Its Economy Strong
Executive Summary
The City of Oakland stands at a crossroads. A stubbornly high crime rate threatens Oakland’s economic competitiveness while the city must address a nine-figure structural budget deficit. The city’s changing urban fabric in the wake of the pandemic has brought greater attention to Oakland’s public safety challenges, which in turn has constrained the city’s ability to generate economic activity and its associated tax revenue – making the issues of public safety and budget more intertwined than ever.
For decades, Oakland has attempted to patch together policing solutions without truly adjusting its budget strategies. Most notably, the Oakland Police Department (OPD) is operating with sworn officer staffing that is very similar to levels of the mid-1990s, when the population of Oakland was 50,000 people less than it is today. Status quo policies have resulted in status quo results, as a lack of prioritization of police resources has left Oakland unable to materially shift the public’s perception of crime and unable to create lasting reductions in the occurrence of crime.
The dual crises in public safety and budget are playing out in real-time in Oakland. The city has faced a string of shootings in early May 2025, particularly in the downtown area. At the same time, the proposed city budget for the next two fiscal years was released. The budget was billed as prioritizing public safety; however, its funding of OPD will only maintain officer ranks at their current levels.
While high crime rates and a budget deficit are not new challenges for Oakland, this report argues that with a new approach – one that places investments in public safety front and center – Oakland can finally move toward a future as a safe city with fiscal stability. This report is the culmination of crime data analysis in Oakland and peer cities, a voter survey of Oakland and East Bay residents, 45 interviews with law enforcement experts and local stakeholders, and research on policing best practices. It presents a case for the need for a new policy and budget approach to policing in Oakland so that residents and businesses regain faith in the city’s ability to solve pressing public problems and the city’s economy can grow vibrantly.
Oakland’s Crime Context
Despite improvements to crime rates in 2024, which can be partly attributed to strategies that are not feasible to maintain in the long term – like outside support from the California Highway Patrol and considerable private sector investments – crime rates in Oakland remain very high, both historically and when compared to other mid-sized U.S. cities:
• Violent crime rates in 2024 in Oakland were higher than they were in 2003 when OPD first became subject to court supervision.
• Between 2020 and 2023, property crime in Oakland increased by an average of 20% annually.
• Oakland’s 2024 property crime rate of 6,519 reported crimes per 100,000 residents is 1.75x the average of 12 other cities analyzed within this report. Oakland also has a much higher property crime rate than both San Francisco (3,864 reported incidents per 100,000 residents) and San Jose (2,633) – showing that property crime in Oakland is not entirely part of a broader regional issue.
• When asked whether they were feeling safer in Oakland when compared to a few years ago, only 11% of Oakland voters and 6% of voters in surrounding cities said they felt safer in a February 2025 survey administered as part of this study – evidence that more work must be done to invest strategically in crime reduction and community safety.
How Crime Threatens Oakland’s Economy
Oakland’s major revenue sources are highly tied to the presence of employers – large and small – in the city, with 70% of all general purpose fund revenues derived from property taxes, business taxes, real estate transfer taxes, and sales taxes. In interviews conducted for this report with employers, safety was highlighted as a key negative of the city’s business climate. Safety concerns have raised the cost of doing business in the city as private employers increase spending on security; some employers have left altogether as employees refuse to work in what they believe are dangerous conditions; and national press around crime is dissuading employers, visitors, and investors from coming to Oakland. The following data points highlight how limited budget growth and a downward spiral of investment should be expected to continue if bold action on crime is not taken:
• The number of paying business tax accounts in the City of Oakland has fallen by 14%, from 52,192 in fiscal year 2021-2022 to 45,021 in fiscal year 2023-2024.
• Sales tax receipts in Oakland projected for fiscal year 2024-2025 are roughly on par with levels from fiscal year 2018-2019; yet over that period the nation experienced cumulative inflation of approximately 22%, meaning Oakland’s sales tax receipts should be $15-$16 million higher if they were following the rate of inflation. Fremont and San Jose have both produced sales tax receipt growth in inflation-adjusted terms over that same period.
• Property tax receipts are heavily reliant on high-tax properties in the downtown area, which has experienced sharp declines in foot traffic when compared to the pre-pandemic period. In the 2025 secured property tax roll, 21.3% of all Oakland’s taxable property value is in the 94612 (downtown) and 94607 (Jack London Square, Chinatown, and West Oakland) zip codes.
• Since 2021, asking rents for office space in downtown Oakland have fallen from near $5 per square foot to well below $4 per square foot. Effective rents are significantly lower, and many major Oakland office buildings face a vacancy rate above 50%. Several office buildings have been “mothballed” by owners who cannot afford to pay for leasing commissions and tenant improvements from severely reduced rental income streams.
• Oakland office real estate sales averaged $162 per square foot in 2024 (five transactions), compared with $563 per square foot in 2019 (11 transactions), according to CBRE. As reduced tenant demand and an inability raise capital for Oakland investments puts continued downward pressure on real estate values, the city’s property tax revenue will struggle to maintain its positive trajectory.
Voters shared similar sentiments about moving their economic activity out of Oakland in the February 2025 survey:
• 64% of survey respondents who are employed in downtown say that crime is a deterring factor in their decision to go to work in person.
• 57% of Oakland voters say they leave Oakland and go to businesses, restaurants, and shops in nearby cities because they feel safer.
• 72% of total East Bay respondents say that public safety concerns have played a role in reduced visitation to Oakland businesses in the past few years.
• 61% of East Bay respondents say they are visiting downtown Oakland less to patronize businesses, restaurants, and shops. More than half of those respondents say that crime and public safety is the major driver of their reduced visitation and spending.
Oakland’s Public Safety Challenges
This report identifies three major barriers to achieving a safer Oakland:
(1) An OPD personnel budget that is too low to address the level of crime in Oakland.
(2) More than 20 years of federal court oversight of OPD that has created additional resource and effectiveness constraints within OPD.
(3) Multiple layers of oversight of OPD within non-elected bodies that create a patchwork accountability system that is spread across too many actors to be effective at implementing policing best practices.
Oakland employs 678 sworn officers as of April 2025, but its current operational strength is 540 when taking into account administrative and medical leave and vacation time. Compared to 25 other cities of similar size, Oakland faces disproportionate levels of law enforcement understaffing. At 1.55 sworn officers per 1,000 people, Oakland ranks 21st of the 26 cities analyzed. Cities that produced notable reductions in property crime levels over the last 20 years (e.g., Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati) each employ more than 2.5 sworn officers per 1,000 people. At 66 serious crimes per officer in 2023, OPD faces more than double the per officer caseload of the average large city in California.
While Oakland’s budget has been a major constraint on police staffing, Oakland’s public safety landscape has also been shaped by a complex and troubled history, including the events that led to court supervision under the Negotiated Settlement Agreement (NSA) in 2003, which remains in place today. While this report acknowledges the important reforms that have been made under the NSA, after 20 years it is fair to question whether the costs of continued court oversight – in terms of actual costs to the city and administrative burdens on OPD – are now outweighing the benefits. For example, Oakland’s citizen complaint process yields three times more internal affairs complaints per officer than any other law enforcement agency in California, creating a resource drain for an already understaffed OPD.
Lastly, police accountability in Oakland is accomplished through a fragmented system created by voters. The Police Commission, Community Police Review Agency, and Office of the Inspector General all weigh in on some aspect of policing policy, officer discipline, and compliance with the NSA. After analyzing police oversight structures in other cities, only one other city (Seattle) was found to use a three-pronged approach to civilian police accountability and oversight. Oakland’s oversight structure is not only inefficient, but also prone to creating a bias toward the status quo – a dynamic that is playing out in discussions around OPD’s vehicle pursuit policy. Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission, another citizen-led body, has also played a key role in slowing OPD’s adoption of networked cameras and automated license plate readers, which are widely used by law enforcement agencies across the country to make real-time resource deployment decisions.
Recommendations
This report details a list of 10 recommendations below, which are organized into four categories:
Funding
(1) Expand, not just protect, funding for public safety including additional sworn officers
(2) Secure future dedicated funding sources for OPD
Governance
(3) Create a citywide goal to end federal court oversight of OPD
(4) Transition to a police review agency that includes both community members and police representation
(5) Clarify processes to update OPD policies and move decision-making power into a single elected body that can act in the public interest more quickly
(6) Reform City Charter and police accountability structures, analyzing aspects of police governance that should remain and those that should end after court oversight concludes
Operational
(7) Focus on strategic law enforcement investments with proven
results:
• Technology as a force multiplier
• More investments in a real-time operations center and technology personnel
• Expansion of Ceasefire and creation of a similar approach to property crime
• Partnerships with other law enforcement agencies
(8) Optimize police patrol deployment with a revised beat map
Partnerships & Community
(9) Grow the Oakland Police Foundation
(10) Build stronger relationships with the private and philanthropic sectors to make long-term investments in economic opportunity and crime prevention programs
While this report underscores that it is possible for Oakland to pull itself out of its budget and crime crisis, as many other cities have done before, Oakland cannot change its economic downcycle or crime perceptions and outcomes without prioritization of public safety across city leadership, community stakeholders, and industry partners. The city and its elected and appointed leadership will need to make difficult and bold choices today to preserve and protect Oakland tomorrow. Oakland’s future – its economic vitality, financial sustainability, and public confidence – will be defined by whether leaders protect the status quo, which will prolong Oakland’s cycles of budget stress and safety challenges, or embrace a new approach that places public safety at the center of all budget and policy decisions.