Lawmakers in Washington, D.C., are primed to begin paying local residents not to break the law.
Preliminary approval was unanimously given by the D.C. Council on Tuesday for the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Amendment Act, or NEAR. A provision within the bill allows the District to pay up to $9,000 per year to individuals just for following the law.
The bill's author, Democratic Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, said it "treats and responds to violence in our community as a public health issue, integrates new approaches to prevent crime and improves law-enforcement training and data collection," the Washington Times reported Tuesday.
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Barry Krisberg, a University of California-Berkeley criminologist who worked on a similar bill in Richmond, California, agreed.
"Punishment might get you to stop a practice, but that doesn’t persist," Krisberg told the newspaper on Tuesday. "If you want behavior to persist over time, rewards are the way to do it."
NEAR also enjoys the support of Black Lives Matter movement, which solidified during racial news coverage of the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland.
"The goal of the office will be to identify our teenagers and young adults at the highest risk for committing or being a victim of violent crimes, for participation in a stipend based program involving life planning, trauma informed therapy, and mentorship," Kenyan McDuffie said in press release after the vote.
City officials plan to find 200 people per year to take part in the program. Each individual would remain anonymous and be required to participate in behavioral therapy and other programs before being paid.
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The last hurdle for NEAR's supporters is to get Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser to commit to funding the program, which the District's independent chief financial officer estimated will cost $4.9 million over four years, including $460,000 a year in stipend payments.
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