OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — California is adding to a surge of cops in Alameda County by partnering state prosecutors with the District Attorney’s Office, to bolster prosecution of people suspected of committing crimes.
Governor Gavin Newsom, state Attorney General Rob Bonta and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price announced a new partnership Thursday between the governor’s office, California's Department of Justice and National Guard, the California Highway Patrol and the district attorney’s office. Newsom said that he intends to deploy attorneys and resources and boost law enforcement capacity in Oakland and the East Bay.
The goal is to better investigate, analyze and prosecute suspects in violent, property and drug-related crimes, Newsom said in a statement Thursday.
Bonta said the partnership is intended to improve public safety ‘’so that Oakland residents can thrive and prosper."
“The East Bay is my home, and I'm committed to ensuring that the people of Oakland can live and work in a safe community,” Bonta said. “The California Department of Justice has legal and law enforcement expertise to bring to bear as we work collaboratively to hold bad actors accountable.”
Price said she has assigned Alameda County career prosecutor and assistant district attorney Michael Nieto to represent her office in the partnership.
“I welcome the support from the governor in this fight against organized retail crime and the scourge of fentanyl in our community,” Price said in a statement Thursday.
The partnership comes amid a mounting attempt by some in the county to recall Price, who has only been in office for one year. In a county known for calls for justice reform amid incidents of excessive force and discrimination across the local criminal justice system. Price is the county's first Black lead prosecutor and successfully campaigned for office by promoting increased police accountability. Recall organizers claim they have raised about $2 million, although the county has not yet confirmed if the recall qualifies for the March primary ballot.
This week, Newsom launched a surge of California Highway Patrol officers into Oakland and surrounding cities to crack down on crimes including vehicle and retail thefts. The nearly 900% increase in personnel within Alameda County will target vehicle, cargo and retail theft, as well as violent crime. While overall crime in Oakland has dropped year over year, robberies and homicides are up.
Alameda County Chief Public Defender Brendon Woods said Thursday that using state lawyers to prosecute local cases will fuel mass incarceration and devastate communities of color.
“They’re trying to use a Band-Aid to fix a broken arm,” Woods said. “More prosecution and more police is not the solution here. We need housing, money for community-based organizations, higher wages, employment, as well as money for our schools, medical care and mental health.”
Woods said his office has not been given additional funding. despite the fact that increased prosecution will add to the public defender's burden. He said that last month Newsom announced he will cut the third year of grant money which funds his office's post-conviction unit, which was designed to implement a raft of new laws designed to reduce mass incarceration in California.
The chief public defender said that California's past experiments with increasing convictions and giving harsher sentences led to mass incarceration, severe prison overcrowding and numerous lawsuits. He said the criminal system already disproportionately targets Black and brown communities and poor and mentally ill people.
“People turn to crime because they have a sense of hopelessness,” Woods said. “Locking them up, taking away their prospects for employment and making their families’ lives difficult actually makes our communities less safe in the long run. We can’t keep doing this over and over."
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