People who claim to be victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and/or human trafficking can apply for $1,000 in cash from the Chicago mayor’s office.
Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson announced this week a $5 million fund for people claiming to be survivors of gender-based violence, WBBM reported. Those seeking the money do not have to prove they are survivors.
“In its commitment to trauma-informed practices, survivors will not be asked for evidence of survivorship, but will be asked to self-attest, or instead provide a connection to an advocate or service provider,” the mayor’s office said in a press release.
Those seeking the funds must be at or below 300% of the poverty level, WBBM added.
A pilot program accepted 1,000 applications for the grant, and Johnson in early May said 733 people had already received their money. Thirty-five percent of the pilot program applications identified themselves as Latino and 47% identified themselves as black.
Providing this free one-time payment to those at or below 300% of the poverty level – which means an annual income of $40,770 for a single person or up to $139,890 for a family of 8 – could incentivize false accusations, according to defense attorney Scott Greenfield.
“On the one hand, free money for claiming to be a ‘survivor.’ On the other hand, great incentive for false accusations,” Greenfield tweeted. “What could possibly go wrong?”
“In its commitment to trauma-informed practices, survivors will not be asked for evidence of survivorship…”
On the one hand, free money for claiming to be a “survivor.” On the other hand, great incentive for false accusations.
What could possibly go wrong? https://t.co/aw6GGruNMQ
— Scott Greenfield (@ScottGreenfield) June 21, 2023
False accusations are not as rare as many claim.
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Media outlets regularly report that 2% to 10% of rape accusations are false, implying that women rarely, if ever, lie about such crimes.
The statistic, however, is misleading, as it only applies to accusations made to police that are proven false. And the proven false statistic is only one category of sexual assault classifications. Other categories include “baseless,” wrongly reported as sexual assault, cases without enough evidence for an arrest, cases with enough evidence but for some reason outside police control an arrest is not made, and cases where there is enough evidence for an arrest. Of the cases that lead to an arrest, a small percentage actually go to trial and result in a “guilty” finding.
It is unlikely that Chicago would ever release information that could be used to determine whether any applicant lied about being a victim in order to obtain free money from the government.