Editor’s Note: Berkeley Social Sciences faculty are turning their research into action, tackling Oakland’s most urgent challenges — from public safety to affordable housing. In this 3-part series, learn how they are partnering with the community to create lasting and meaningful change by addressing concerns from residents.
As many traditional approaches to Oakland’s complex issues continue to be ineffective, the city is in need of innovative solutions that address the real needs of its residents.
UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab, led by Political Science and Public Policy Professor Amy E. Lerman, tackles this need by centering resident-led solutions for Oakland’s diverse challenges through data-driven research and partnerships with community organizations. By empowering residents to have a say in their own public policy solutions, the Lab’s work in Oakland aims to address the city’s specific needs with innovative solutions that allow its community members to thrive.
The Possibility Lab brings together researchers from many disciplines, government leaders, and community members to evaluate relevant issues and develop solutions that advance the public good. One of the core values of the Possibility Lab is engagement — particularly with civic groups who are not typically included in conversations about policy solutions and can offer unique perspectives that researchers don’t necessarily have.
Lerman, the Lab’s executive director, uses her expertise in criminal justice reform, civic engagement, and social inequality to drive collaborative work in Oakland.
“We, as researchers, have something very specific to bring to the table. We are experts in research methods,” Lerman said. “We are experts in measurement. What we aren't necessarily experts in is what our community partners bring to the table, which is their own expertise about what it is like day to day to live in communities that have the features of the communities they live in.”
Projects and Collaborations
The Possibility Lab is executing a series of projects that enable government leaders and community members to find public policy solutions through collaboration.
One of these projects, the Firsthand Framework for Policy Innovation, developed non-traditional public safety solutions in Oakland by conducting a series of focus groups and town halls where Oakland residents were asked to discuss different ways they determine how safe they feel in their neighborhoods.
Residents’ responses revealed dozens of ways they assess safety that are beyond traditional measures like violence and crime rates. They said their perception of a safe neighborhood includes things such as seeing children playing outside; whether they know and trust their neighbors; and if their neighborhood parks are clean. These answers, Lerman said, present new pathways for creating public safety solutions.
“If we expand the definition of what safety is, then we expand the set of solutions that can be leveraged to help increase safety in a city,” said Naomi Levy, faculty affiliate and director of community engaged research at the Possibility Lab and political science professor at Santa Clara University.
One approach the Lab is taking to utilize resident responses is through its partnership with Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention (DVP). The Lab has contracted with eight of DVP’s former life-coaching clients to collaborate on a project to carry out safety solutions in Oakland, drawing on how safety is perceived through the eyes of community members.
The eight former DVP clients, all of whom were previously incarcerated, justice impacted and/or affiliated with Oakland’s gang network, decided to name the project New Narrative.
“All of them are deeply aware of the fact that they used to be part of the problem in the city, and now they want to be part of the solution,” Levy said. “That’s where the name New Narrative comes from — they're trying to write a new narrative about their lives and about their relationship to their community.”
Together with Levy and other Possibility Lab team members, including research associate Dante Miguel and research fellow Hakim Owen (who is also a student in Berkeley’s Underground Scholars Initiative), New Narrative has carried out several interventions to positively affect Oakland, including cleaning up a local park, painting a mural in an area previously covered in gang-tagging and graffiti, and distributing hygiene kits to unhoused people.
New Narrative is currently developing proposals for what the City of Oakland can do to provide better programming for its youth. The Possibility Lab is setting up meetings between the New Narrative team and Oakland’s City Administrator’s Office to discuss the development of these programs.
Another of the Lab’s most successful collaborations is with Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), an Oakland-based organization dedicated to ending mass incarceration and youth criminalization. The Possibility Lab partnered with CURYJ to interview youth who are currently incarcerated in the juvenile justice system to better understand what life is like for them. A report based on this data to the Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Commission in Alameda County will soon be released.
Other Initiatives
Additional initiatives of the Possibility Lab include a partnership with the Alameda County Probation Department dedicated to reframing probation and a long-term project with Mount Tamalpais College that will track formerly incarcerated individuals after their release from San Quentin State Prison (many of whom often end up living in Oakland) to follow along with their educational and employment outcomes.
With its many projects and initiatives, the Possibility Lab is committed to empowering Oakland residents by giving them a voice in finding creative solutions to build neighborhoods that embody their definition of safety and safe places.
“We can learn a lot from what happens in Oakland,” Lerman said. “It has some deep structural problems, but also has incredible people and promise, and our hope is to see that promise flourish.”
