In 2017, Oakland logged its lowest number of homicides in 17 years. Last year’s 74 homicides were also the third fewest in the city in more than four decades. Injury shootings were also down. In fact, Oakland has achieved a reduction in combined injury shootings and homicides in each of the previous five years.

The reductions in gun violence over the past five years coincide with the implementation of the city’s main violence-prevention strategy, known as Ceasefire. Toward the end of 2012, a year when 126 people were killed, community and faith leaders urged the city to adopt Ceasefire, a successful gun violence reduction model that had been effective in Boston in the early 1990s.

Although nationally Ceasefire is a title that is largely misunderstood and even maligned, and sometimes rightfully so, the Oakland strategy has evolved into its own unique model that jurisdictions from across the country have now come to observe and to learn from.

Oakland Ceasefire has four primary components: data-driven identification of the groups and individuals at the highest risk of being involved in a shooting; respectful communication of that risk directly to those groups and individuals; an offer of real services, support and opportunities to those at the very highest risk of gun violence; and focused enforcement, where police conduct narrowly targeted enforcement operations specifically on those individuals that continue to engage in violent crime after they receive the communication.

When all four components of the strategy are operating effectively, it works! While many other factors have contributed to Oakland’s reduced violence, Ceasefire appears to deserve significant credit. An independent comprehensive evaluation is currently underway, but the data available so far speaks volumes.

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In the five years since the strategy has been implemented, murders have dropped by more than 40 percent, from 126 in 2012 to 74 in 2017, according to data from the Oakland Police Department. Non-fatal injury shootings have been nearly cut in half, from 553 in 2012 to 277 in 2017. Other violent crime has declined as well. In 2012, there were 2,184 armed robberies using a gun; last year that number dropped to 980, a 55 percent reduction.

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Manjoo: Clean air was once an achievable political goal Much credit goes to Oakland voters. The city’s gun violence reduction strategy has survived two mayoral administrations and several police chiefs. The program’s primary funding comes from Measure Z, a voter-approved initiative that pays for police officers and approximately $8 million a year in violence-reduction programs. Oakland Unite, a city agency, manages the $8 million annual fund mainly through grants to community-based organizations.

Individuals identified as being at very high risk of being involved in a shooting through the Ceasefire initiative are connected to life coaches, case managers who are “credible messengers” because they have similar life experiences as the clients they serve. Life coaches develop trusting relationships with the clients and connect them to needed services. Through partner organizations that offer employment services, nearly all Ceasefire clients who wanted a job were able to earn one last year.

Although Oakland Ceasefire has demonstrated significant promise, some police officers think it is too lax and dismiss it as a “hug a thug” program. There are community activists who are weary of the initiative as well, saying any partnership with law enforcement is suspect. But the results speak for themselves.

The loss of 74 lives to murder in 2017 is still too many. However, the city’s sustained drop in gun violence should be celebrated. There is much more work to be done, but Oakland is on the right track.

David Muhammad is the Executive Director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR), a non-profit organization based in Oakland. He has been a consultant to the Oakland Ceasefire strategy and through NICJR he also manages a local community-based organization that provides services to Ceasefire clients.