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San Francisco Will Pay People to Not Shoot Others

San Francisco is rolling out a pilot program that will pay high-risk individuals to not shoot anyone as gun crimes tick up in the city.

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The Dream Keeper Fellowship will pay 10 individuals who are at high risk of being on either end of a shooting $300 each month to not be involved in such crimes.

The fellowship is being rolled out by the Human Rights Commission and Office of Economic and Workforce Development and is funded through the Dream Keeper Initiative, which is San Francisco’s program that works to redirect funding into the Black community. It will launch in October.

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Participants of the program will be paired with life coaches from the city’s Street Violence Intervention Program and will serve as “community ambassadors.” Participants are also eligible to receive an additional $200 per month through ways such as, working, going to school or being a mediator in potentially violent situations.

Payments are made in the form of gift cards and will be monitored, the San Francisco Examiner reported.

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Shootings have spiked in the city this year, with 119 recorded gun crime victims in the first half of the year, which is double the number during the same timeframe in 2020.

The program follows a similar one in Richmond, California, which was dubbed “cash for criminals” by the media after gun crimes increased. A 2019 study credited the program with helping reduce gun homicides in the city by 55%.

Critics of the program have pointed out that similar initiatives haven’t been very successful, with the Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso saying in a Wednesday op-ed, “It was also tried in Sacramento, where its promoters boast that ‘only’ 44% of participants were subsequently arrested on new charges — well, as long as you don’t count about one-third of the participants who dropped out or were arrested in its first six months. (D’oh!)”

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