The creation of Oakland, California’s Department of Violence Prevention (DVP) in 2017 was a response to an increasing recognition that violence is transmitted across time and settings: from homes to streets, from one generation to the next, and across social networks. The DVP’s public health approach allowed Oakland to start moving beyond crisis response to also focus on identifying and addressing each individual’s primary drivers of violence. It focuses on safety, healing, and opening opportunity pathways, and coordinating services at greater scale, while targeting its efforts on communities most impacted by violence.
Focusing on community-led intervention strategies, the DVP aims to reduce group violence, 10 domestic violence, and commercial sexual exploitation, as well as family and community trauma associated with violence. By housing these strategies within a single department, Oakland intentionally focuses on how these different forms of violence intersect and reinforce one another across individuals, families, and communities, providing a comprehensive and integrated response to urban violence. The work of the DVP recognizes that if violence is driven by multiple, intersecting causes, it must also be addressed intersectionally, understanding that healing takes place by addressing the trauma associated with all forms of violence in someone’s life and by increased health and safety, which are created when pathways to opportunities are secured.