Page 65 - Violence Prevention Through the Engagement of Violence Producers

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE VIOLENCE INTERRUPTION PROGRAMME

is included.

Table 23: VIP Costs

The fees for Violence Interrupters during the April 2019 to December 2019 period stands

out. This period saw a significant increase in the compensation paid to VIs moving from
$50,000.00 per month during the periods before to $80,000.00 per month in 2019. The

increase, though not the specific amount, was one of the recommendations made in the
Gayle report .
58

Table 24 provides an estimate of the net savings to the State assuming: (i) a potential

shooting, had it not been interrupted, would have resulted in a serious injury and not a
fatality nor a slight injury; (ii) the shooting, had it not been interrupted, would have resulted

in one injury and not multiple injuries; (iii) the cost of treatment remained constant over
the periods. It should be noted that that the assumption with respect to single as against

multiple injuries does not hold in many cases given the nature of gang conflicts wherein,
invariably, a shooting results in multiple injuries. Accordingly, the net savings shown below

can be regarded as being quite conservative.

Net saving to the State for the three periods amounted to a total of approximately $71.12
million, that is, the VIP saved the taxpayers of Jamaica $71.12 million.

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58 Op cit.

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