Misdemeanor Criminal Prosecutions to Increase in Oakland, CA

In a move to provide additional prosecution resources to so-called “quality of life” issues in Oakland, city attorneys will be tasked to being prosecuting misdemeanor charges in the city. Until now, criminal prosecutions have been the responsibility of the Alemeda County District Attorney’s Office, and city attorneys have worked exclusively on civil charges. The move will give added resources and priorities to offenses like disorderly conduct, drunk in public, and minor drug possession charges, without taking any resources from the County DA’s office whose primary focus will remain dangerous felony offenses.

According to the news article, less than 10% of the property and assault related crimes reported to city police resulted in charges filed, though it’s unclear how many of those cases were not pursued simply due to limited prosecution resources. But the goal is this program is to prosecute more of these crimes that affect the livability of the city neighborhoods.

It is unclear whether the result of these additional prosecution resources will be stepped up enforcement of these kinds of charges by Oakland police, or simply a more efficient and targeted response to existing incidents.

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