In the past few decades many uber wealthy Americans have started making donations to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that are attempting to help solve some of the crime issues among minority communities in the United States. Some American states and cities have attempted to piggyback off of these same NGOs as they attempt to tamp down rising violent crime in inner cities.

One such anti-violence program in Chicago was known as “Peacekeepers.” This was a state funded program that pays former gang members and “justice-impacted” participants up to $150 per day to help reduce gang conflicts and gun violence. Essentially, wealthy donors and the State of Illinois were paying criminals to not break the law. If you don’t see the potential for abuse in this program, you should keep voting in the Democrat primaries.

According to Olivia Reingold, writing in The Free Press, this type of public payoff to criminals has become the norm in blue cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. According to Reingold, over the past decade, taxpayers and private donors “have spent around $1 billion on community violence intervention (CVI) programs in Chicago.”

As with any government program in Democrat controlled states and cities, these programs are rarely monitored and do not accomplish the stated goal of lowering crime. In fact, often those being paid to stop crime are being arraigned at the court house for violent crimes.

The NGOs that are administering these programs are run by reliable Democrat voters and are contributors to Democrat causes. These Democrat voters demand that the ineffective programs be funded by taxpayers and the Democrat politicians keep the money flowing to these programs in spite of little evidence that the programs have any impact in lowering crime.

A recent example of this wasteful program occurred last September. The Democratic Governor of Illinois, J B Pritzker, was visiting a program that pays young people to not commit crime. One of the individuals the Governor posed with was Keller McMiller.

Six days later, McMiller allegedly was involved in stealing $700,000 in merchandise from a Louis Vuitton store. One of the robbery participants was in a getaway car fleeing the crime scene at excessive speed and collided with another vehicle which resulted in the death of the innocent driver.

It turned out that McMiller had 4 active arrest warrants at the time of the robbery. Even with the active arrest warrants, McMiller was receiving up to $600 per week to “not commit crimes.”

This is a sad example of how much money is wasted by government programs and foundation grants. It is astonishing how much charitable money is wasted on programs that don’t work.

Many Americans are being duped into giving money to charitable organizations or community foundations. Donors expect this money to be spent wisely but the results are often abysmal. Most of the people working in these foundations have liberal arts degrees and zero business experience. While they may have compassion and empathy, the money that is being spent is often done so with a handout mentality that deals with symptoms while avoiding addressing the real economic problems and social issues. People are often afraid to investigate how the foundations and NGOs are spending their money because they have cloaked their organizations in the mantra of “helping the needy.”

In the business world, if money is invested in a project and the returns are abysmal, investments dry up. Americans need to start investigating the tax dollars that are being spent on charities that are giving money to criminals to stop them from committing crime. Charities and NGOs need to be held accountable for how their work is actually lowering the crime rate.