Firsthand Framework
for Policy Innovation
Integrating community expertise into public safety reform
Is public safety making all of us safer?
have unique insights into how to create meaningful reform.
But their voices are often absent from the places where policy decisions are made.
Building a system where everyone is heard requires finding new ways to listen.
Over the past two years, we’ve teamed up with community organizations and policymakers in the City of Oakland to ask:
How can we shift our focus from what is problematic to what is possible?
We talked to hundreds of residents and asked the question:
How do YOU know if your community is safe or unsafe?
The answers provide “firsthand indicators” of safety that reflect the expertise of residents who have historically been both overpoliced and underserved.
These indicators provide nuanced perspectives on public safety that can help us find new roads to reform.
The Firsthand Framework
Process
Click each step to learn more
We partnered with six organizations to reach nine different communities of Oakland residents
defined across
- geography (e.g., neighborhoods, housing developments, proximity to parks)
- identity (e.g., shared race, ethnicity, nationality and/or language)
- association (e.g., membership in institutions like churches or civil society organizations)
- and shared experiences (e.g., formerly incarcerated, violent crime survivor, refugee)
Collaborations: BOSS, CERI, CURYJ, MISSSEY, TYBE, THE UNITY COUNCIL
Alongside our partners, we conducted 24 focus groups with a total of 330 participants.
Each focus group invited residents to discuss the signs and signals that they are already using to assess both the presence and absence of public safety in their community.
Next, we convened larger town halls with each community, totaling about 550 participants.
During town halls, we presented the full list of indicators and asked participants to vote for those that most closely reflected their own experiences of safety.
We coded and analyzed these Firsthand Indicators to paint a vivid and multi-dimensional picture of community safety.
When we use the indicators to map the public safety ecosystem, the indicators reveal the interdependent processes that promote and hinder safety at the community level.
Together with Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention (DVP), we are using the Firsthand Indicators to identify promising points of intervention.
The Indicators can help promote a wider range of solutions that go beyond traditional public safety policies, which are focused primarily on policing and incarceration.
We will then work with DVP to deploy the Firsthand Indicators as quantitative measures to track progress and evaluate reforms.
The Indicators can be measured using a combination of observational, survey, and administrative data, providing alternatives to top-down metrics of what constitutes “success.”
We sorted these indicators into 7 dimensions:
And further into a wide range of categories.
Hover over categories to see their definitions
Across communities, indicators reveal meaningful differences in perspective:
And when considered side-by-side, the indicators can show how one perspective feeds into another.
SOLUTIONS
How would public policy look different if safety was measured by
the number of kids playing in the park,
whether people share food with strangers
or whether you hear birds in the neighborhood instead of helicopters?
If public safety is mostly measured by crime statistics, then public safety policies will mostly address crime. This results in more resources dedicated to punishment and fewer resources dedicated to creating the conditions that make crime less likely. In contrast, the Firsthand Framework for Policy Innovation suggests a broader array of solutions that focus on the health and well-being of residents, families, and communities.
Firsthand Framework in Action
In 2024, the Possibility Lab partnered with the City of Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention (DVP) to design and implement solutions based on the Firsthand Framework.
Lab researchers worked with eight of DVP’s former life coaching clients who named their group the “New Narrative,” reflecting their mission of transforming their own stories and their commitment to changing their relationship to their community. Once, they were involved in activities that decreased safety in the city. Now, they aim to draw on the Firsthand Indicators and their own lived expertise to map the ecosystem through which safety is promoted or hindered in their communities.
Drawing from their own experiences as young people at risk of gang activity, the team focused on reducing kids’ exposure to gang-related tagging. The process of ecosystem mapping helped highlight points of potential intervention for youth, where positive cycles could be supported or negative cycles interrupted.
The New Narrative team worked with indicators involved in a negative feedback loop: “There is gang activity in the neighborhood” “You see a lot of graffiti”, “Kids join gangs because they seem like their best option”
And indicators involved in a positive feedback loop:
“The park is clean”, “Kids play together and do activities outside instead of staying at home alone”, “Parks are full of kids playing soccer”
“When young people experiencing different struggles see this [gang graffiti], they are more likely to get caught into it and find their own sense of belonging through gang activities”
- New Narrative team member
As some members of the New Narrative team had personally experienced homelessness, they also focused on indicators relating to the needs of people currently experiencing homelessness
“The cost of living is too high”
“The unhoused are not receiving enough help”
“Homeless people need to scavenge and fend for themselves”
“People look down on unhoused people”
“There are a lot of people who end up without a home, living in cars or tents”
“People work together in homeless camps to help each other”
“Community members help the unhoused”
The Possibility Lab then supported the New Narrative team in utilizing firsthand indicators to design and implement two rapid, small-scale interventions: a park clean-up and mural installation, and outreach in an unhoused encampment.
As the New Narrative illustrates, the Firsthand Framework process can empower those who have been at the center of gun and gang violence, historically excluded from resources and support, to participate in creating and implementing solutions.
Together, we are using the Firsthand Framework to illustrate how communities and government can work in meaningful and sustained partnership, to co-create real and lasting change.
EXPLORE THE DATA
Collaborations
BOSS
BOSS is tackling the root causes of poverty, homelessness, incarceration, and violence. Social programs + social justice = social progress. Learn more
CERI
CERI is an Oakland-based nonprofit organization offering mental health and other social services to refugees and immigrants affected by war, torture, genocide and other life-altering traumas. Learn more
CURYJ
CURYJ (pronounced ‘courage’) unlocks the leadership of young people to dream beyond bars. We look to young people to lead the way in transforming our communities by investing in their healing, aspirations, and activism. Learn more
MISSSEY
Through Black survivor leadership, and centering the voices of young people, MISSSEY is addressing the root causes of sexual exploitation and is dedicated to collective healing and power. Learn more
TRYBE
Breaking cycles of suffering and violence through the power of beloved community. Learn more
THE UNITY COUNCIL
Promoting social equity and improving quality of life by building vibrant communities where everyone can work, learn, and thrive. Learn more
If your agency or organization is interested in community-informed public safety reform, or new ways to engage communities in public problem solving, we want to connect with you. Or if you'd like to tell us about an indicator of safety you use in your own community, or to share your thoughts on this project, please email us below.”
This work was made possible with generous support from the California Community Foundation / California 100 Initiative and was carried out in partnership with Everyday Peace Indicators, Santa Clara University, and Brandeis University.