PerspectiveAdvocates Push California City to Adopt Program That Pays People Who Don’t Shoot
Fresno, California, has a homicide rate roughly twice the state average. In an effort to stem the violence, many advocates and Fresno residents have pushed city leaders to adopt an innovative violence interruption model called Advance Peace. J. Brian Charles writes that in addition in addition to provides resources like education and job training to those most at risk of being a perpetrator or victim of gun violence, the program has a unique and controversial feature: Participants receive a monthly stipend for staying out of trouble.
On 17 November, gunmen opened fire on a gathering of family and friends watching a football game in Fresno, California. Four people were killed in the attack, and six more wounded.
J. Brian Charles writes in The Trace that the incident was by far the deadliest and most brazen shooting to occur in the city of 500,000 this year. “But it was hardly the first case of gun violence. Fresno has a homicide rate roughly twice the state average, according to federal statistics. On July 4, two rival groups exchanged 58 shots, leaving one man dead.”
Less than a week later, a 5-year-old boy was shot while strapped in the back seat of his mother’s car.
Charles writes:
In an effort to stem the violence, many advocates and Fresno residents have pushed city leaders to adopt an innovative violence interruption model called Advance Peace. The program, which was developed in the nearby California city of Richmond, provides resources — like education, job training, addiction services, and counseling — to those most at risk of being a perpetrator or victim of gun violence. It also has a unique and controversial feature: Participants receive a monthly stipend for staying out of trouble.
In July, the Fresno City Council heeded activists’ calls and authorized $200,000 to fund the program in 2020. But Mayor Lee Brand, a Republican, vetoed the proposal, citing a lack of scientific evidence that the program works.
A dearth of independent analysis for community violence prevention programs is not uncommon. Advance Peace and other programs — particularly small-scale ones — frequently lack the budgets to fund studies of their effectiveness, even as they draw the support of gun violence researchers.
