Jul 23 2015 tt post

• Jul 23, 2015 - Toledo Blade - Politics and public safety
• YouTube : Operation Peacemaker Fellowship - Richmond, CA
• Wikipedia : Richmond, California - population ~108,000
• Jul 4, 2015 - NY Times : To Stop Crime, Hand Over Cash
• Nov 12, 2014 - The Nation : How One California City Began Bringing Its Murder Rate Down
• Sep 26, 2014 - SF CBS - Richmond Anti-Crime Program Takes Enemies On Free Trips

Excerpts from the September 2014 story:

A Richmond program is sending former criminals on all-expense paid trips — but there’s a catch. You have to go arm-and-arm with your enemy.

It’s part of the Operation Peacemaker Fellowship in Richmond. It aims to bring together Richmond residents separated by hate in a step-by-step program.

The most popular part is traveling. The fellowship pays for the guys to get out of Richmond, see California and the world.

They’ve gone to Washington D.C. and Mexico City, meeting with public leaders, visiting colleges and doing community service projects.

These fellows are surpassing all expectations simply by staying alive and by giving rise to hope in a city that desperately needs it.

The stats are impressive. Of the 68 fellows who have joined since 2010 — 57 of them haven’t been involved in any gun activity.

Excerpts from the Jul 23, 2015 Blade op-ed:

County commissioners and Sheriff John Tharp have invited the head of a controversial but effective anti-violence program in Richmond, Calif., to speak to Toledo's leaders, including Police Chief George Kral and Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson.

Devone Boggan, Richmond’s neighborhood safety director, told The Blade's editorial page this week that he is eager to come to Toledo to talk about Operation Peacemaker, which has cut his city's homicides and firearm assaults in half. Sheriff Tharp is trying to schedule the visit for August or September.

Operation Peacemaker turned Richmond around in 2010 by identifying the city's most lethal young men, inviting them to a sit-down, and, in exchange for peace, offering them a 15-month fellowship that included cash incentives.

If the young men stayed out of trouble, attended meetings, and participated in mentoring for six months, they would become eligible to earn as much as $1,000 a month for a maximum of nine months. Meantime, street-savvy staff — called change agents — also mentored and coached about 150 clients a year.

Cash for peace might sound wild to some people, but it worked. One of the nation's 10 deadliest cities in 2007, Richmond last year reported its lowest number of homicides and firearm assaults in more than four decades.

Sheriff Tharp told Lucas County commissioners about Operation Peacemaker last week, after reading about it in the New York Times. Common Pleas Court Judge Dean Mandros brought the article to the sheriff's attention. This week, Commissioners Pete Gerken and Tina Skeldon Wozniak told The Blade's editorial page that the strategy deserves a serious look in Toledo.

In Toledo, homicides are down for the first half of this year from 2014, but shootings are up 40 percent, to 230 from 164.

In a July 19 column by The Blade’s deputy editorial page editor Jeff Gerritt, ex-offenders said that violent young men need an incentive, and an opportunity, to change.

From the Richmond, CA Wikipedia page:

The city has in the past suffered from a high crime rate; at one point, the city council requested a declaration of a state of emergency.

In 2007, Richmond opened a program to prevent gun violence, the Office of Neighborhood Safety. The program collects information and analyzes public records to determine the 50 people in Richmond most likely to shoot someone and to be shot themselves. It then offers selected individuals a spot in a program that includes a stipend to turn their lives around.

Over an 18-month period, if the men demonstrate better behavior, ONS offers them up to $1,000 a month in cash, plus opportunities to travel beyond Richmond.

In 2004, Richmond was ranked the 12th most dangerous city in America. Those rankings have changed, and Richmond is no longer a ranked as a "most dangerous" city, in either California or the United States.

This is in large part due to the efforts of Police Chief Chris Magnus, who established "community policing", which involves police officers engaging with affected high crime communities.

The decrease in crime can also be attributed to progressive organizations such as Urban Tilth, which gives youth an opportunity to participate in community agriculture.