Posted on 09/02/2021 4:06:06 AM PDT by blam
San Francisco may be best known for its poo and needle-covered streets (requiring six-figure ‘poop patrollers‘), but the liberal stronghold – driven into the ground under decades of Democrat leadership – is about to experiment with yet another ‘fix’ for its self-inflicted wounds…
…Using taxpayer money to pay criminals not to shoot people.
In October, San Francisco will begin offering high-risk individuals $300 per month not to shoot anyone, or get shot themselves, according to the San Francisco Examiner. What’s more, participants can earn up to $200 more per month by hitting program milestones – such as landing a job interview, complying with probation, or consistently meeting with a mentor, according to the report.
Known as the “Dream Keeper Fellowship” (a.k.a. Cash for Criminals), “The initiative will pair participants with newly hired life coaches from the Street Violence Intervention Program, known as SVIP, who will help the them make the right choices and access services.”
“We know that $500 in San Francisco is not a significant amount of money,” said Sheryl Davis, a proponent of the program and executive director of the Human Rights Commission. “But if it’s enough to get you in to talk to folks, and be able to make a plan for your life, then that’s huge.”
This isn’t the first time a city has tried to reduce gun violence by offering cash. A similar anti-violence program in Oakland, for instance, offers young adults up to $300 for achieving milestones. What’s new is San Francisco would start people off with a baseline of $300 a month without having to meet any marks.
The program is modeled, in part, after the nationally watched Operation Peacemaker Fellowship in Richmond, which offers similar stipends of up to $1,000. A 2019 study published in the American Journal of Public Health linked the program to a 55% decrease in gun homicides and 43% decline in shootings since it began in 2010.
It’s also not San Francisco’s first guaranteed-income program. The City recently rolled out similar efforts for pregnant mothers from marginalized communities and artists struggling during the pandemic. -SF Examiner
The program will start off with just 10 participants in October, and then expand benefits to another 30 high-risk individuals by the end of the year. Officials have already hired two life coaches for the program.
“What we are actually doing is trying to address the root causes of some of what’s happened,” said Davis. “Six thousand dollars per person, when you look at it annually, is nothing if it helps deter criminal activity compared to the amount of money it costs to incarcerate someone, let alone the impact of the activity itself.”
The program, funded in part by the Dream Keeper Initiative established by Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Shamann Walton to divert funding from the police, is being rolled out by the Human Rights Commission and Office of Economic and Workforce Development.
“My desire is to get to them, not to just make an arrest, but to get to them and to try and figure out if they would be willing to work with us on something that is an alternative,” said Breed at a Violence Prevention Summit earlier this month. “We can’t just put them in a program without making sure that they have money, without making sure that they have something to take care of themselves.”
The effort comes as shootings are soaring in San Francisco, after years of declines. It’s a pattern being seen around the nation during the pandemic, even in cities like Oakland that already have cash incentive programs.
About twice as many people have been shot in San Francisco as of late July compared to either of the prior two years. During the same time period, police data show there were 21 gun homicides in 2021 compared to 15 in 2020 and 14 in 2019. The number of non-fatal shooting victims also rose to 108 from 51 and 50 in the previous two years.
Those numbers don’t even include a series of four fatal shootings that erupted within the span of five days earlier this month. (San Francisco has seen 34 homicides so far in 2021, as of August 26, compared to 32 at the same point last year. That number includes killings unrelated to gun violence.) –SF Examiner
“Providing individuals with resources to survive and increase their options for success is integral in changing the trends of increased violence,” said Walton, adding “This is the perfect time for this strategy.”
Somewhere in Hell the Barbary Pirates are smiling.
Politicians there will put themselves on the list to get an extra 300/mo.
Let Darwin sort it out.
Pay me. I promise I won’t shoot no one.
How will they know if the participants didn’t shoot somebody?
I thought this was the Babylon Bee.
“Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?”
War wants to know.
Proof that being arrested is meaningless to the criminals
Do I get credit if I shoot and miss? What if I just wing someone? “See? Merely a flesh wound. He’ll be fine!”
From the joe stolen hand book
I’ve never shot anyone in my sixty years. At $300/ month, for sixty years, by my calculations, that’s over two hundred grand. Sure, I’m not in San Francisco but, if I don’t get my monnee, I might move there and start shooting!
</sarc>
Now that’s a good deal, especially with the ammo hoarding shortage.
This could have been B Bee satire as recently as a year ago. Ridicule has lost its power against the densely packed stupidity that resides in the minds of the American left.
Isn’t this basically extortion?
This isn’t new. This is from 2016, but they were paying up to $1,000 per month, not the paltry $300 that the cheapskates in SanFransicko are offering:
“One California city is paying people not to commit crimes”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/one-california-city-is-paying-people-not-to-commit-crimes
I would like nothing than for SF with all its inhabitants to drown in the Pacific ocean.
Wouldn’t miss LA, either.
Where is the Big One when we need it?
Bookmark under “you can’t make this shit up”!
I haven't shot anyone [so far] today. Where do I get my cash?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.