Pay Killers To Bring Down Homicide Rate, Baltimore Activist Says

A Baltimore activist who had spent 18 years in prison then turned to efforts to stem violence in the city has an idea for combatting massive number of homicides in the city: pay people not to kill others.

Tyree Moorehead, who was jailed at the age of 15 for 18 years after a second-degree murder conviction, told FOX 45, “I can relate to the shooters, guess what they want? They want money. … I’ve talked to these people, I’ve seen the shooters, it’s a small city, I know who the hustlers are. … I can’t stop the shootings, no one in this world has proven to stop the shootings not even the church. But what we can do is put them in compliance.”

“As of 2019, he painted nearly 200 ‘No Shoot Zones’ throughout the city, according to WJZ-TV reporter Paul Gessler,” Fox News reported, adding, “In 2020, the city eclipsed 300 homicides for the sixth year in a row, while recording more than 1,000 shootings.”

Since 2015, rapper Tyree Moorehead has painted nearly 200 “No Shoot Zones” throughout Baltimore.

Since July, we’ve been working on a story with him about what drives him and whether they work. It airs tonight at 5:30 on @wjz. pic.twitter.com/PzAgIP89yW

— Paul Gessler (@PaulGessler) December 3, 2019

Former Baltimore Police spokesman T.J. Smith told FOX 45 that he didn’t think Moorehead was correct that paying would-be killers not to kill would work, saying, “It could make it easier for people to get their hands on guns because they now have an influx of a different level of cash.”

In 2016, Richmond, California, a suburb of San Francisco, tested a program called “Advance Peace. ” “The 18-month fellowship hires convicted felons to ‘court’ troubled youth — who so far have avoided arrest due to lack of evidence — with offers of cash and out-of-town vacations if they mend their ways,” Fox News reported. “If, after six months, a ‘fellow’ in the voluntary program begins to achieve specific goals, they can earn up to $1,000 a month,”

In 2017, after Sacramento adopted an Advance Peace program, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert expressed her concerns, saying, “I support the gang prevention task force and the many evidence-based youth mentoring and intervention programs already in existence in the city of Sacramento. I have serious concerns with a program that is apparently based upon the payment of money to high-risk individuals in exchange for a promise not to engage in violent criminal conduct. There is insufficient evidence-based data to show this approach is effective in preventing gun violence.”

The founder of Advance Peace, Devone Boggan, told MarketWatch in 2017 of the participants in the program, “They’re getting a robust menu of opportunities thrown at them.” The program works with those “who are trying to kill each other,” he said. “Our whole point is to neutralize gun violence.”

“Try to imagine a young man who has most of his life grown up in a literal urban war zone,” Boggan added. “He’s a trauma survivor living in chaos who doesn’t have a lot of hard or soft skills. [The money] is a stabilizing factor while he’s being developed, so to speak.”

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