DC government will pay criminals not to commit crimes
In ancient times, it was known as “Tribute” – a city or town paying barbarians not to attack and destroy their homes. Sometimes it worked, and the barbarians went away. But more often than not, the barbarians happily took the tribute and then attacked and looted the city anyway.
The city government of Washington, D.C. is looking to revive the practice by paying criminals up to perhaps $9,000 a year not to commit any crimes.
Under the bill, city officials would identify up to 200 people a year who are considered at risk of either committing or becoming victims of violent crime. Those people would be directed to participate in behavioral therapy and other programs. If they fulfill those obligations and stay out of trouble, they would be paid.
The bill doesn’t specify the value of the stipends, but participants in the California program receive up to $9,000 per year.
Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, a Democrat who wrote the legislation, said it was part of a comprehensive approach to reducing violent crime in the city, which experienced a 54 percent increase in homicides last year. Homicides and violent crime are still down significantly since the 2000s, and even more so since the early 1990s when the District was dubbed the nation’s “murder capital.”
McDuffie argued that spending $9,000 a year in stipends “pales in comparison” to the cost of someone being victimized, along with the costs of incarcerating the offender.
“I want to prevent violent crime – particularly gun violence – by addressing the root causes and creating opportunities for people, particularly those individuals who are at the highest risks of offending,” McDuffie, a former prosecutor, said in a letter to constituents last week.
Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser has not committed to funding the program, which would cost $4.9 million over four years, including $460,000 a year in stipend payments, according to the District’s independent chief financial officer. Without the mayor’s support, it would be up to the Council to find money for it through new taxes or cuts to existing programs.
The program would be run independently of the police department, and participants would remain anonymous. Its goal would be to recruit people who are at risk of violence but don’t have criminal cases pending.
How will modern-day barbarians respond? Probably the same way the Visigoths or the Mongols responded: if your city was a sitting duck and they could attack without severe losses, you were toast.
If someone is predisposed to committing violent crime, he will refrain from doing so as long as he believes he will be caught and punished. But if he thinks he can get away with it, I suspect no matter what behaviroal classes he has attended, he will go ahead and offend.
Perhaps D.C. should take that money and hire more police rather than pay a tribute to barbarians, at whose mercy D.C. residents will be.
Filed under: General Problems
Doesn’t matter what one calls (tribute, stipend, “insurance”) it or who the participants (the ordinary thug, the common citizen, the State, the Visigoths or the Huns, the Mafia) are. It’s a protection racket. It helps substantiate that the biggest organized Crime Syndicate in this country is the Government of the United States of America. The People pay trillions a year all told, for “Insurance” in the form of taxes. The current government is so bloated and has expanded so far outside of the bounds that the founders intended and it’s all in the name of protecting the citizenry from this and from that. A bulk of the laws that have been put on the books in the last 150 years have more to do with public safety or providing for the public to “protect, on some level or another, the people from starvation, disease, catastrophe, evil corporations abuse of workers, etc.” Granted, there is some truth in all of that, but only enough to get people to go along with it. The truth is that most of those responsibilities were delegated to the several states and yet we have this leviathan government.
This could easily be called tribute or protection money. Yet, the Big Syndicate can’t seem to keep it’s promise of protecting the common citizen because it has done it’s best to eliminate the common citizen’s best protective tool, the firearm and the ability to carry it concealed in public.Washington, DC is the worst offender in this country. Only in the last seven years or so has this been addressed with with the Heller decision in the SCOTUS. Since 1976, most ordinary folks had to check their Second Amendment Rights at the Potomac on the Virginia side or at Eastern, Western or Southern Ave.’s on the Maryland side as they crossed into the District.
Here is yet another colossal waste of extorted-at-gunpoint dollars aka tax payer monies. It is tantamount to the corporate subsidies where farmers (especially the corporate farms that have supplanted the traditional family farms) are paid to not grow certain crops or even a better analogy, where money is given to criminals to modify their behavior, the Drug Lord Price Support Program aka the War on Drugs. The other outrageous thing is the amount of money that is being earmarked for this program where only about 10% goes into paying the stipends of the criminals or the victims. Talk about a top-heavy administration for the program. Is this really about preventing violent crime? I don’t think so. I think a few individuals are being paid to run a huge shell game for their own benefit. Their is some sort of cronyism being practiced here. Almost five million dollars is appropriated and only $460,000 is being paid out as the incentive. That’s a total of 51 people who will benefit from the program. This does not take into account the people who will be collecting a paycheck to run this thing for the next year. That sample size is too small to determine if this is even effective. Yet, I bet that the “success rate” will be reported in glowing number. The finding will be doubled and perhaps a total of 70 or 80 people will receive monies for submitting to the behavior modification and more people will have to be hired to administer it. The result will be a more top heavy program than before. I hope no one is foolhardy enough to suggest that the program be contracted out to a civilian entity either. They tend to be worse than the government. $700 for a $25 dollar, Home Depot style hammer anyone? Granted that this is being administered by the DC City government, but there is not a whole bunch of actual separation between the government that runs the Imperial Capital and the entity that runs the Empire at that level. Expect to see this “program” being picked up by the Federal Government at some point. The people that presume to rule over us seem to spend what time is left over, from running for reelection, with finding new ways to tax and spend what we work hard for, in order to support our families.
You sure can tell that there are too many politicians and not enough Brains in DC. Stupid idiots are going to have all the crooks competing for a paycheck.
How do I sign up? Do I have to do time first? Wait this says victims of crime too, do i count? Ivr been mugged twice in one year.