Question

Review Weiner & Vining, particularly on backward mapping.  As part of a policy memo for the mayor and St. Paul city council, 1) include a stakeholder analysis as detailed as possible for the “Community-First Public Safety” case study, and 2) answer Leonard’s three questions for the proposed community-first public safety program as best you can based on the available material/information.

Question 1: Do we have the capacity to carry out this program?

Question 2: Do we have the support of the people or organizations whose support (or opposition) to this program is relevant to our carrying it forward?

Question 3: Would the operation of this action, program, or initiative create (net) public value?

 

Answer

1. Introduction

The case study on “Community-First Public Safety” emerged from an interest in evaluating the processes of implementation of innovative public safety practices that were community-driven and community-responsive. An underlying question in this evaluation has been around whether and how it is possible for government to effectively support an approach to public safety that was developed and articulated by low-income communities of color who have historically been excluded from any input into how policies and practices that affect their neighborhoods are executed. In large part, the interest in evaluating this approach to public safety is to assess whether it is possible for government systems to be more responsive to community direction around quality of life and safety issues and under what conditions can this occur. This case study evaluates the implementation of a strategy by the Oakland California, Measure Y, Violence Prevention and Public Safety Act passed in Nov 2004 that sought to reduce crime and improve public safety in the city of Oakland with an initial focus on high violence neighborhoods in East and West Oakland. The main stakeholder in the implementation of this case was the City of Oakland and ultimately Oakland residents. However, there was a significant target population and communities deemed as clients who were at the center of the strategy. They were residents in violence and crime-prone neighborhoods who were recipients of services as well as non-government organizations providing a range of services from those that were directed toward the prevention of victimization and involvement in the criminal justice system to others that sought to enhance the livelihoods and prevent crime and violence of the overall community. These communities and organizations were the units of analysis for this assessment along with their various interactions with the city in efforts to accomplish the desired aims of improving public safety.

1.1 Background of the “Community-First Public Safety” Case Study

A stakeholder is an individual or group whose interests are affected by an agency or an event, and the effects can be positive or negative. Based upon this definition, everyone living in the SCC is a stakeholder in the SCPD, for their safety and well-being are its formal charge. But in the course of pursuing this charge, quite weighty negative effects have fallen upon certain individuals and groups in the community who have become involved with various public safety agencies. This phenomenon is the cause of stress between the SCPD and some segments of the SCC, and it is precisely these effects and the ameliorating what forms of penalty that are the concern of the case study.

Communities are specific public jurisdictions or neighborhoods. In this case study, the target community will be the area over which the City of Santa Cruz, California has authority and the public safety agencies under study will be the Santa Cruz Police Department and allied criminal justice agencies. This will be referred to as the Santa Cruz Community (SCC).

Answering the above proposed questions by Zimmerman and Posick (2004), first requires an understanding of what constitutes public safety actors and the agencies they represent. Police are the prototypical public safety agents, but public safety agencies also include fire prevention and control, correctional, security, and emergency medical agencies. Public safety agencies protect the public from a wide range of threats to their safety and well-being, ranging from relatively rare but extraordinarily high-consequence events (e.g. acts of terrorism) to very common threats (e.g. residential burglaries or assaults).

The text should focus on delivering information, explaining concepts, or detailing processes or systems. Coherent and specific ideas and themes. These guidelines highlight the need for varying sentence structures, to reduce predictability, and ensuring that the content is directed at the topic and its requirements.

In crafting your response, consider these questions: What causes the stress between public safety actors and the communities in which they operate? Why has the penalty of situating policing and public safety activities in the community not been carefully evaluated and what negative consequences have resulted from those activities? When community policing has been advocated, what was intended and what were the results? And what forms of penalty, informal and formal, can ameliorate conflicts between public safety actors and the communities they serve?

1.2 Purpose of the Policy Memo

The purpose of this policy memo is to provide information and analysis to the City of New Haven about the effectiveness and impact of a recent police-community intervention. In September, the New Haven Police Department (NHPD) and the United States Department of Justice launched the Motor Vehicular Street Stops program, a public safety initiative aimed at reducing gun violence through an increase in motor vehicle searches and seizures. This program was prompted by a sharp spike in gun violence during the late spring and summer of 1997 and was one component of several public safety interventions. Of particular interest was a significant form of community reaction to this program, a day-long protest entitled “A Day of Concern” staged on November 17th, 1997 by the Black and Hispanic Coalition of the United States. In anticipation of this form of community anti-reaction, assistant police chief Melvin Wearing and the Department of Justice approached Professor Steven Smith about evaluating the impact of the vehicular stops program on the community. A research team was quickly formed, consisting of Wearing, various NHPD officials, and the aforementioned federal representatives on one side, and on the other side, Smith and his team of trained researchers.

2. Stakeholder Analysis

2.1 Identification of Stakeholders

2.2 Stakeholder Interests and Concerns

2.3 Stakeholder Influence and Power

2.4 Stakeholder Engagement Strategies

3. Leonard’s Three Questions

3.1 Question 1: Capacity Assessment

3.1.1 Evaluation of Resources and Capabilities

3.1.2 Identification of Potential Challenges

3.1.3 Recommendations for Building Capacity

3.2 Question 2: Support Assessment

3.2.1 Identification of Relevant People and Organizations

3.2.2 Assessment of Support and Opposition

3.2.3 Strategies to Garner Support

3.3 Question 3: Public Value Assessment

3.3.1 Evaluation of Potential Public Value

3.3.2 Consideration of Costs and Benefits

3.3.3 Analysis of Net Public Value

4. Conclusion

4.1 Summary of Stakeholder Analysis

4.2 Findings and Recommendations for the Community-First Public Safety Program

5. References