Mentoring Oakland’s Youth and Keeping an Eye on OPD
Regina Jackson has successfully brought positive change to her community in East Oakland for over 25 years, now the question is: can she help reform the Oakland Police Department?
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Show Notes
Is police reform actually achievable? That's the question I'm most interested in asking Regina Jackson.
Ms. Regina, as she's often called, has been the Executive Director of the East Oakland Youth Development Center since 1994. That's where she perfected her system of mentorship and community engagement.
In 2017, Ms. Regina was elected to a four-year term as the Chair of the Oakland Police Commission-- an independent review board that works outside of OPD to oversee policies and practices within the department.
Ms. Regina's goal is to bring her philosophies on mentorship and community development to the Oakland Police Commission, in the hopes that it will result in substantial reform to the Oakland Police Department-- which has been under a federal monitor since 2003.
Ms. Regina is powerful and competent, but given all that I've experienced with police in America, especially over these past few weeks-- with footage of George Floyd's Death and the tale of Breonna Taylor's death, I've grown more pessimistic about the potential of "reforming" police departments in America, Oakland's included.
But if anyone is going to make a dent in police reform, it's going to be someone like Ms. Regina.
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