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About 700 people rallied at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in Oakland Saturday in protest of plans to hire 100 new Oakland police officers and build a new 420-bed juvenile hall to serve Alameda County. 

Amid a skyrocketing murder rate, Oakland’s City Council voted last week to support Mayor Jerry Brown’s proposed ballot measure to raise $63 million through tax increases to outfit more police officers. 

Meanwhile, with overcrowded conditions at the county’s current 299-bed Juvenile Hall in San Leandro, county leaders are pursuing plans for a larger, $170 million youth detention facility.  

Organizers of Saturday’s demonstration, the Youth Force Coalition and Books Not Bars, argue that money for more cops and a bigger jail is not the best way to address the growing rates of crime. 

Furthermore, they say the policies are stacked against youth. 

“I can’t believe that the county would even consider putting more money into locking us up when they’ve said that they needed cutting for after-school programs, park and rec. programs and even cutting school budgets,” said YFC member Rico Nieves. 

Nieves noted that Oakland has a deficit of $83 million, which is already hurting school and youth programs. 

Nieves argued that new funding should go to community-based organizations and after-school programs in an attempt to keep kids out the criminal justice system. 

At Saturday’s rally, the attendees enjoyed a play staged by Colored Ink Theater and a variety of music including spoken word, hip hop and soul. There were also several dance performances.  

“We organized this to let the city of Oakland and the county of Alameda know that we want alternatives to incarceration,” said YFC Director Khadine Bennett. “We don’t want more cops. We want more jobs. We want more classrooms.” 

Bennett said there is no evidence that adding more cops to the police force will result in fewer homicides in Oakland. She is concerned because, in the past, youth in west Oakland have been unfairly targeted for arrest and harassment. 

Just last week Oakland settled several of the so-called Rider cases in which Oakland police officers were accused of kidnapping, filing false reports and beatings primarily in west Oakland neighborhoods. 

Mayor Brown, though, sees things differently. He and his supporters say that more police officers are fundamental to reducing the murder rate, which is now 67 for the year. 

And despite Saturday’s cries to the contrary, Brown says the ballot initiative to fund more officers has widespread support. 

“Oakland is underpoliced. If we had the same number of police officers per capita, we’d have almost three times as many as we have,” Brown said. “We’ve got a lot of support and some opposition. You have some people who don’t like police.”  

The measure to expand the Oakland police force will go to Oakland voters in November. The measure also proposes funding for violence prevention programs. 

While plans for the county’s new Juvenile Hall are still being worked out, construction of the facility must begin by 2005 for the county to qualify for state funds. 

– The Associated Press contributed to this story