Explore The NRA Universe Of Websites

APPEARS IN News

Urban Myth: Crime Doesn’t Pay – California City Authorizes Stipends to Gang Members

Friday, September 15, 2017

Urban Myth: Crime Doesn’t Pay – California City Authorizes Stipends to Gang Members

Gang members profit through criminal enterprises in a variety of ways: drug, weapon and human trafficking; theft, robbery, intimidation and extortion, and various kinds of fraud. In a win-win for gangbangers, material gains from criminality in one California municipality will soon include government-sanctioned payola.

In a special meeting on August 29, the nine-member City Council of Sacramento unanimously agreed to allocate $1.5 million in funding and to move forward with a “gun-violence reduction strategy” that will include cash payments (“LifeMAP milestone allowances”) and paid vacations for the handful of gang members suspected of committing the majority of gang-related gun crimes in the city.

The report and funding agreement before the council indicate that the program, the “Peacemaker Fellowship,” is to be implemented by a group called Advance Peace. It proposes to reduce gang violence through “transformational opportunities to young adults identified as most likely to be” involved in “gun violence” and by ensuring “greater connectivity to culturally competent human, social, and economic opportunities” for these individuals. The details, as fleshed out during the council meeting, were that participants will be selected from a small group of gang members thought to be behind the “re-cyclical and retaliatory” gun crimes in the community. Among other things, program participants will be required to identify and commit to “LifeMAP goals” (academic aspirations, or more basic things like “getting a driver’s license or improving their relationship with their parents or their kids”). As part of “incentivizing achievement,” the program’s “touchpoints” include “Transformative Travel” and cash stipends for participants. The cost associated with each participant tops out at an estimated $30,000.

The four-year agreement requires the city to pay $500,000 over the course of two years, starting this year. Implementation will consist of two 18-month segments, with 50 participants in each segment. The expected “outcomes” listed in the report are a reduction in firearm assaults and firearm-related homicides by 50 percent” over the four years, “reduc[ing] by $26 million the government costs associated with gun violence,” and the dismantling of “gang war zones within and around the City.”

At the meeting, only one council member, Angelique Ashby, raised significant concerns with the agreement and the authorizing resolution. Among these deficiencies, she noted that out of the “many, many numbers” referenced in the proposal, including “$26 million in government savings,” there was “not one citation” to explain or substantiate these references. The agreement was “front loaded with the cash,” with all of the funding paid out in the first two years but with “zero outcomes” due until year three, meaning the city had no payments that it could withhold if there was a default in performance. More generally, nothing allowed the city to terminate the agreement if the benchmarks and goals weren’t met, which was complicated further by the fact that the goals (like an initial reduction of 20 percent in gun-related assaults and homicides) had no clearly defined baseline or starting point against which performance would be measured. The agreement start and end dates were left blank; the only “quantifiable dates” in the contract were the dates on which the payments by the city had to be made. Nowhere was there a requirement that the program be coordinated with local law enforcement or schools. And despite an assumption that Advance Peace was going to “match” the city funding with an equal amount, this obligation wasn’t documented in the agreement wording.

Determined to waste not a moment, the council rejected councilor Ashby’s request for a one-week delay to address these concerns, although it agreed to incorporate some changes. 

A much more fundamental problem – considering the whole premise is a reduction in gang-related violence – is that nothing in the agreement or resolution requires fellowship participants to make a commitment to forego violence and forsake their gang lifestyle as a condition of participation, or mandates withholding payments and other incentives from participants who commit violent crimes or are charged or convicted of criminal offenses. While fellowship participants will be evaluated for “new gun charges/arrests” as part of the overall benchmarking reports, this doesn’t extend to criminal charges more generally, or operate as a disqualification. A participant who is paid council-approved funds for accomplishing his “LifeMAP goal” of getting a driver’s license is under no agreement-imposed impediment against using that license to facilitate other criminal acts.  

One law enforcement official – Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones – points out the program may actually shield participants who commit crimes. “They do not engage in law enforcement at all, and I have been told that if they become aware of one of the participants committing crime, they will NOT notify law enforcement.”

This funding is not just “counter-intuitive,” it is simply wrong. Apart from the most obvious, glaring lack of anything in the agreement that conditions payments on “good behavior” and a repudiation of gang violence, the perception is this “incentivizing” is compensation for lawbreakers that weakens respect for the law and the criminal justice system. Heather MacDonald, the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, calls it “an absolute abdication of the law and of the moral authority of the law, and a perfect example of defining deviance down…I mean, you’re basically holding the state hostage.”

These misgivings might arguably be overlooked if there was some guarantee that the spending program significantly reduced gang violence over an appreciable period of time. City residents looking for assurances that their taxpayer funds are being spent wisely will find little in the Council Report. Its lengthy recital of statistics, percentages and cost savings omits, surprisingly, information on the merits and success of this and similar programs. The government bureaucracy may be just as well served, in terms of reducing gang crime and violence in Sacramento, by giving the same participants a bus ticket and $20,000 to stay out of the city. 

Residents who aren’t gang member fellowship recipients will have to wait and see. Unfortunately for them, at the same time that the Sacramento City Council embarks on this bold new program to assist “hard-to-reach” residents to escape crime and violence in their communities, lawmakers across the state continue their efforts to prevent law-abiding Californians from doing the same through the exercise of their Second Amendment rights (here and here and here).

TRENDING NOW
U.S. Senate Adds Pro-Gun Tax Relief Language Back into Reconciliation Bill

News  

Saturday, June 28, 2025

U.S. Senate Adds Pro-Gun Tax Relief Language Back into Reconciliation Bill

Overnight, the U.S. Senate added pro-gun tax relief language back into the Reconciliation bill after the Senate Parliamentarian struck out an earlier provision.  While this new provision is not as expansive as the language we advocated for which ...

U.S. Senate Forced to Remove Pro-Gun Language from Reconciliation Bill

News  

Friday, June 27, 2025

U.S. Senate Forced to Remove Pro-Gun Language from Reconciliation Bill

Today, the U.S. Senate was forced to remove the pro-gun language that had been previously included in the Reconciliation Bill currently making its way through the chamber. We explained in a previous article that this language would, ...

One Big Beautiful Bill Clears Senate, and Heads Back to House

News  

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

One Big Beautiful Bill Clears Senate, and Heads Back to House

Earlier today the U.S. Senate passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” This bill contained a provision that would, among other things, eliminate the burdensome $200 excise tax imposed by federal law on suppressors, short-barreled firearms, and “any ...

U.S. House Passes Reconciliation Bill, Removing Suppressors from the National Firearms Act

News  

Second Amendment  

Thursday, May 22, 2025

U.S. House Passes Reconciliation Bill, Removing Suppressors from the National Firearms Act

Earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.1 the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included Section 2 of the Hearing Protection Act, completely removing suppressors from the National Firearms Act (NFA).

Armed Churchgoers Prevent Mass Attack as State Lawmakers Plot More Gun Control

News  

Monday, June 30, 2025

Armed Churchgoers Prevent Mass Attack as State Lawmakers Plot More Gun Control

Just over an hour away from the state capitol in Lansing, Michigan – even as lawmakers worked feverishly to pass various gun control measures, including expansion of “gun free” zones – a chilling reminder unfolded of the ...

Urge the U.S. Senate to Pass the One Big Beautiful Bill – Contact Your U.S. Senators Today!

News  

Monday, June 30, 2025

Urge the U.S. Senate to Pass the One Big Beautiful Bill – Contact Your U.S. Senators Today!

The U.S. Senate has cleared a number of procedural hurdles and is preparing to vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill. This vote will likely come within the next day. The One Big Beautiful Bill includes ...

Canada’s Big Ugly Gun Grab: An Update

News  

Monday, June 30, 2025

Canada’s Big Ugly Gun Grab: An Update

Canada’s Liberal government is pressing on with its harebrained gun ban and confiscation program for “assault style weapons,” but, true to form and precedents, it has been far from smooth sailing.

U.S. Court of Appeals Backtracks on Adverse Suppressor Ruling

News  

Monday, June 23, 2025

U.S. Court of Appeals Backtracks on Adverse Suppressor Ruling

In a single sentence, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit added to the high-profile and consequential national conversation on firearm suppressors.

North Carolina: Update on Gun Bills Moving through the General Assembly

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

North Carolina: Update on Gun Bills Moving through the General Assembly

Recently, House Bill 193 (H193) was reported favorably out of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Rules Committee, with amendments.

News  

Second Amendment  

Friday, June 27, 2025

Joint Statement from Pro-Gun Groups on the Senate Reconciliation Bill

On behalf of millions of NRA members and gun owners, we stand united in calling on Congress to uphold Americans' Second Amendment rights and zero out the NFA's excise tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms.

MORE TRENDING +
LESS TRENDING -

More Like This From Around The NRA

NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.