Oakland’s election landscape has been unusual in the last several years— the impact of a mayoral recall has mixed with races for vacated offices with visible presence of large amounts of tech, finance and real estate/landlord money from outside of the city. Candidates have ranged from a fired Police Chief, to a red hat-wearing Larouchie to a long-time congresswoman. But one thing has remained consistent in all of the races—candidates claim that they can increase Oakland police staffing.
Some, like Loren Taylor in the Mayoral race, and Charlene Wang, Kanitha Matoury and Harold Lowe in the D2 race, have claimed they have a plan to increase OPD sworn staffing in the hundreds of officers. Others, in the minority of the claim-making*, like Barbara Lee, have more modest goals, getting staffing back to 700 [the new Measure NN minimum] and beyond if possible. Recently released public records reveal that Lee may be closer to realistic goals, but that even that less ambitious target may be hard to reach.
City Records Reveal OPD Academy Recruitment, Graduation Decline Over Past Decade
Data from a public record request has confirmed the reporting of this publication on police academy enrollment and graduation over the past several years— the data up to 2023 shows that the Oakland police department has had a consistent declining recruitment and smaller graduating classes since 2017. Additional city data from other sources shows that the recruitment seems to have gotten worse in the past several years, despite interventions by Council, City and OPD brass. The data also reveal that only about half of the officers who began an academy class in the last decade successfully finish mandatory Field Training, the 5 month on-duty education required after the 5-6 month academy. An average of 49% of the starting class over nearly a decade finished the field training and became a permanent officer**.
Recruitment Decline in 2017
The decline in academy enrollment appears to begin in 2017, but academies in the several years up to that time were of dimensions current city officials might only dream about. Classes began with 50 to 60 recruits with graduating classes larger than the starting classes of the current era’s academies. During that time, former Mayors Jean Quan and Libby Schaaf and other officials vowed to get police staffing back up to 800—a typical staffing level during the scandal and violence plagued Riders era—through more vigorous recruiting and more academies. But the Celeste Guap scandal and other scandals that broke out in 2016 and beyond had lasting and significant impacts on Oakland police staffing.
Sloppy vetting of trainees from around 2014 to 2016, is largely credited with producing the police officers at the center of an increase in those OPD scandals, budget-draining lawsuits, inappropriate behavior, and actual criminal acts. In the aftermath of those scandals, the City amplified its screening procedures and training, according to journalist Scott Moriss’ reporting at the time on OPD’s “lost” academy classes of the period. But the period also coincided with protests sparked by the police killings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, which created more scrutiny on police driven by social media and citizen capture of violence, killings and abuse on phone cameras.
The decline in recruitment for OPD academies mirrors a well-documented nation-wide trend that began mid-decade and has been documented in local and state-wide agencies, such as the SFPD, Alameda County Sheriff, LAPD and CHP.
Recruiting Challenges May Be Increasing but Decisions About Academies are Politicized
The last 2 years have been particularly challenging ones for OPD recruitment and graduation, suggesting Oakland’s recruitment and staffing problems could get worse before they get better. Every year, the City budgets for graduating academy classes of 33 officers—but academy classes over the last five years have rarely started with that many trainees to begin with. The data provided from the records along with OPD’s own recent data about starting class size and graduation show that for the last six academies, average class size has started at 28 and ended with 19 officers for field training.
The tension between the reality of academy production and aspiration to increase police staffing broke out into open legislative conflict in 2021. Schaaf, arguing that more academies are worth the additional cost, proposed 3 academies per fiscal year in her Mayoral budget. Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas proposed 2 instead, arguing that current classes were too small to justify the additional expense, with each academy costing around five million dollars. City Council initially only approved 2 academies per year in the 2021 biennial budget that July, instead of Schaaf’s requested 3.
In the ensuing months, however, the now well-known Covid-era increase in crime worsened, coupled with an unusually large flight of officers from the force—at least partially related to a new mandatory Covid vaccination policy. While violent crime increased for the first time in years, the standing police force lost nearly 10% of its staffing in a matter of months. CMs Loren Taylor and Sheng Thao both raced one another to be the first to propose adding an additional academy in the fall of that year, with Thao's more substantive plan winning out. Thao again proposed another plan to add academies in the coming year during deliberations on the police staffing decline below Measure Z minimums, this time racing the Schaaf administration's own efforts. Thao's plan proposed one additional normal academy and a lateral recruit academy from other police forces that never materialized***.
Schaaf’s school of thought—that more academies will significantly increase the police force—won out in the argument about policing as it often does. But the logic failed to hold. The first academy in the new legislated funding held promise and began with an unusually large class of 40—but only thirty officers graduated from the class. The next two classes fell short, however, and were among the lowest of the ten year period—starting classes of 26, 25, and 28 recruits that produced only 58 police officers total****. By January 2024, OPD had only netted 22 additional officers and still had fewer officers than it had at the start of 2022 when the increased academy legislation took effect.
Subsequent classes have fared no better, and have resulted in often worse outcomes. OPD saw its second lowest graduating class in 10 years in May 2024—only 12 recruits managed to become officers from an unusually low starting class of 22 in the 193rd academy.
OPD’s Sworn Staffing Decreases Amid High Attrition, Low Academy Performance
At one point in the beefed up and poorly vetted pre-2017 recruiting, OPD’s sworn staffing very briefly reached a pinnacle of around 781 officers—closer to 800 sworn officers than it’s been since a Council voted to lay off officers and cancel academies in 2010. But since then, recruitment has declined, while average attrition has risen, coupled with the historic flood of departures during Covid and the graying of the OPD. After the 194th academy graduated in December, staffing was at around 700. After several more months of attrition police staffing is in the low 680s at the time of this writing.
Ongoing budget issues will no doubt complicate the math as well as the perception of recruitment. During budget recalibrations that became necessary in December, the City Administrator decided to forego the fiscal year’s remaining OPD academies—one was cancelled, and one delayed until the next fiscal year that begins in July. But the delayed academy struggled with recruitment from the start, and at one point, Chief Floyd Mitchell told the Oakland Police Commission that the delayed academy was struggling with historically low recruitment by the time it was scheduled to start. With current attrition rates, OPD staffing could reach 630 by the time an academy graduates in late 2025. It’s also unclear where recruitment will be after a six month pause.
Update: Data Table
Here's a data table the OO put together enhancing the data originally received with more up to date numbers and context, such as academy end dates and the City's own yearly staffing figure given on January 1 of most years during the period in report back to Council. Averages and percentages are also added.
*2020 Mayoral candidate Greg Hodge has been the only candidate to suggest that Oakland should aim for staffing of around 700, and that the City should plan to work with that number. The several years before and after his run prove that the goal is an effective high water mark, regardless of any strategic or ideological associations.
**Once trainees graduate from the academy, they are considered full time sworn officers, and their attrition during training is included with the greater force attrition numbers, so the true rate of academy success is rarely studied. While the field success rate for graduating police is higher than the academy success, the additional drop outs and terminations add a significant level of failure to the comprehensive academy production.
***for several years, Oakland’s police chiefs have put little faith in the potential for a lateral academy to address OPD staffing needs. Previous performance over a decade ago was poor, with few recruits and fewer graduates.
****academies 189-191, 2022 to 2023
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