A Brief History of Drop Points
A Brief History of Drop Points
The earliest origins of the Drop Point Program can be traced back to the 12th Century when Pope Innocent III permitted churches to place “mite boxes” in churches, permitting people to leave their donations for the church at any time. This concept expanded in 1653, when Parisians introduced the first postbox for collecting outgoing mail. However, postboxes weren’t adopted more broadly until the 19th century.
These kinds of depositories served an important, if subtle function, they allowed for transactions to disentangle delivery in time and space. People involved in some sort of trade or transaction could still meet at the same place to exchange goods, but they were no longer required to meet at the same time.
This kind of anonymity seemed to be a perfect solution for policymakers in the early 21st century. After a series of high-profile murders of wealthy citizens, Night City politicians were pressured to do something, anything about gun violence. But hemmed in by strong 2nd Amendment protections, the local government and police department had limited options.
To try to dry out the enormous supply of firearms in the city, the then-Mayor adopted a “gun buyback program” that had met with modest success in small previous trials elsewhere. Unfortunately, early test programs in the 2030s fell far short of expectations.
The Night City corporation brought in an outside consulting company to examine the system, identify problems, and propose policy options. Several problems were identified. First, Night City’s streets don’t run on a neat, bureaucratic 9-5 workday. The people the program sought to reach weren’t likely to be the kind of citizens who would schedule an appointment in advance and come down to the police station during traditional working hours. Second, people participating in the program expressed enormous concerns about falling under suspicion for crimes committed with guns, when they were merely citizens trying to help make the streets safer. Third, the problem involved significant staffing and administrative costs, which tempered the enthusiasm of an already-overburdened Night City Police Department for future program growth.
The consultants, former Militech and SoftSys executives, proposed a novel solution: PeacePoints. Combining the familiar concepts of church poor boxes for donations and postboxes for outgoing mail, these automated drop points were a way to accomplish the essential goal of a gun buyback program—getting guns off the streets—in a way that would best serve Night City’s underserved communities. To ensure the program brought guns in, program lawyers built in extremely strong 5th amendment safeguards (specifically the right against self-incrimination), meaning that all gun buybacks would be, forever and always, no questions asked.
PeacePoints was a resounding success, bringing in more than a thousand guns in the first year alone. However, success comes at a price. Or, more specifically, a significant cashflow program. With the rising number of returns, the total buyback budget had become prohibitively large. Recognizing that part of the problem with gun violence was the black-market supply of guns on the street, Night City made another important innovation: Gun Sellback. By selling the guns to licensed, legitimate, responsible gun dealers, especially small businesses, Night City could undercut illegal arms dealers by suppressing the market price for weapons among buyers. In one stroke, Night City solved program budget programs while simultaneously destroying the city’s illegal arms economy.
Bolstered by their success, Night City expanded the program. More than just a way to combat gun violence, the drop points were enlisted to fight in the War on Drugs. A drug buyback program was put into place in 2047; from exotic designer drugs to alcohol and more common consumables for strength and stamina, the buyback program started to grow in size and popularity. However, there was one hitch: No wholesale resale market for illegal drugs. Shortly after the program started, the supply of illegal drugs being turned in for cash (usually manufactured by local gangs in massive quantities) quickly depleted program budgets. Unable to recoup their losses on illegal drug buybacks, the city opted to kill that part of the program, restricting it to goods with less controversial resale issues.
However, by this point, the effect of PeacePoint—now called DropPoint--on the street economy couldn’t be ignored. In particular, advocates for the poor and homeless argued for expanding the buyback program to other goods. Policymakers saw two advantages. First, the program could cripple the market for many stolen goods. Second, by providing a price floor for goods, sellers were protected from the excesses of greedy pawnshop owners and helped provide a reliable source of cash for crafted goods made by Night City’s budding entrepreneurs.
By the late 2050s, DropPoint had expanded considerably, providing a significant portion of the Night City operating budget. But in 2062 a scandal erupted, crippling the program severely. With the protection of unscrupulous police, some weapons vendors were selling goods to customers, taking their cash for the purchase, only to follow them and kill them. The merchants then took advantage of the gun buyback program boxes to deposit the guns, no questions asked, where they’d come up for resale in a matter of days, where they could be purchased and (eventually) sold again.
Between the problems associated with making the city complicit in the scam and the amounts of money being skimmed by local politicians, Night City faced enormous pressure to divest itself of the program. After a lengthy consultation, Night City sold the entire program off to private investors shortly before the Unification Wars erupted.
Night City still hails the PeacePoint, and its successor DropPoint, as a success, comparing the returns, especially those of guns, with local city murder rates. In 2076, the city saw over 7,000 murders, but the gun violence reduction programs had recorded more than 25,000 buybacks in that same period.
Criminologists and economists have battled for years over whether the overall effect of the program has helped or hurt crime preventions (or gun sales) in Night City and that debate is unlikely to end anytime soon. Some critics have characterized DropPoint as a “gun laundering” program, it still receives strong support from the NCPD, based on the reasoning that if they were taking four guns off the street for every murder, then eventually the supply of guns would dry up. So far, built-in legal protections have made it impossible to determine how many times a given gun has been turned in for cash or whether any gun was used in one or more crimes.
In recent years, there have been a few experimental attempts to expand the service for more general transactions, allowing local merchants to buy and sell goods through the boxes at a price. These have only met with modest success so far, not least because of about the capture and use of user data.
A Brief History of Drop Points
The earliest origins of the Drop Point Program can be traced back to the 12th Century when Pope Innocent III permitted churches to place “mite boxes” in churches, permitting people to leave their donations for the church at any time. This concept expanded in 1653, when Parisians introduced the first postbox for collecting outgoing mail. However, postboxes weren’t adopted more broadly until the 19th century.
These kinds of depositories served an important, if subtle function, they allowed for transactions to disentangle delivery in time and space. People involved in some sort of trade or transaction could still meet at the same place to exchange goods, but they were no longer required to meet at the same time.
This kind of anonymity seemed to be a perfect solution for policymakers in the early 21st century. After a series of high-profile murders of wealthy citizens, Night City politicians were pressured to do something, anything about gun violence. But hemmed in by strong 2nd Amendment protections, the local government and police department had limited options.
To try to dry out the enormous supply of firearms in the city, the then-Mayor adopted a “gun buyback program” that had met with modest success in small previous trials elsewhere. Unfortunately, early test programs in the 2030s fell far short of expectations.
The Night City corporation brought in an outside consulting company to examine the system, identify problems, and propose policy options. Several problems were identified. First, Night City’s streets don’t run on a neat, bureaucratic 9-5 workday. The people the program sought to reach weren’t likely to be the kind of citizens who would schedule an appointment in advance and come down to the police station during traditional working hours. Second, people participating in the program expressed enormous concerns about falling under suspicion for crimes committed with guns, when they were merely citizens trying to help make the streets safer. Third, the problem involved significant staffing and administrative costs, which tempered the enthusiasm of an already-overburdened Night City Police Department for future program growth.
The consultants, former Militech and SoftSys executives, proposed a novel solution: PeacePoints. Combining the familiar concepts of church poor boxes for donations and postboxes for outgoing mail, these automated drop points were a way to accomplish the essential goal of a gun buyback program—getting guns off the streets—in a way that would best serve Night City’s underserved communities. To ensure the program brought guns in, program lawyers built in extremely strong 5th amendment safeguards (specifically the right against self-incrimination), meaning that all gun buybacks would be, forever and always, no questions asked.
PeacePoints was a resounding success, bringing in more than a thousand guns in the first year alone. However, success comes at a price. Or, more specifically, a significant cashflow program. With the rising number of returns, the total buyback budget had become prohibitively large. Recognizing that part of the problem with gun violence was the black-market supply of guns on the street, Night City made another important innovation: Gun Sellback. By selling the guns to licensed, legitimate, responsible gun dealers, especially small businesses, Night City could undercut illegal arms dealers by suppressing the market price for weapons among buyers. In one stroke, Night City solved program budget programs while simultaneously destroying the city’s illegal arms economy.
Bolstered by their success, Night City expanded the program. More than just a way to combat gun violence, the drop points were enlisted to fight in the War on Drugs. A drug buyback program was put into place in 2047; from exotic designer drugs to alcohol and more common consumables for strength and stamina, the buyback program started to grow in size and popularity. However, there was one hitch: No wholesale resale market for illegal drugs. Shortly after the program started, the supply of illegal drugs being turned in for cash (usually manufactured by local gangs in massive quantities) quickly depleted program budgets. Unable to recoup their losses on illegal drug buybacks, the city opted to kill that part of the program, restricting it to goods with less controversial resale issues.
However, by this point, the effect of PeacePoint—now called DropPoint--on the street economy couldn’t be ignored. In particular, advocates for the poor and homeless argued for expanding the buyback program to other goods. Policymakers saw two advantages. First, the program could cripple the market for many stolen goods. Second, by providing a price floor for goods, sellers were protected from the excesses of greedy pawnshop owners and helped provide a reliable source of cash for crafted goods made by Night City’s budding entrepreneurs.
By the late 2050s, DropPoint had expanded considerably, providing a significant portion of the Night City operating budget. But in 2062 a scandal erupted, crippling the program severely. With the protection of unscrupulous police, some weapons vendors were selling goods to customers, taking their cash for the purchase, only to follow them and kill them. The merchants then took advantage of the gun buyback program boxes to deposit the guns, no questions asked, where they’d come up for resale in a matter of days, where they could be purchased and (eventually) sold again.
Between the problems associated with making the city complicit in the scam and the amounts of money being skimmed by local politicians, Night City faced enormous pressure to divest itself of the program. After a lengthy consultation, Night City sold the entire program off to private investors shortly before the Unification Wars erupted.
Night City still hails the PeacePoint, and its successor DropPoint, as a success, comparing the returns, especially those of guns, with local city murder rates. In 2076, the city saw over 7,000 murders, but the gun violence reduction programs had recorded more than 25,000 buybacks in that same period.
Criminologists and economists have battled for years over whether the overall effect of the program has helped or hurt crime preventions (or gun sales) in Night City and that debate is unlikely to end anytime soon. Some critics have characterized DropPoint as a “gun laundering” program, it still receives strong support from the NCPD, based on the reasoning that if they were taking four guns off the street for every murder, then eventually the supply of guns would dry up. So far, built-in legal protections have made it impossible to determine how many times a given gun has been turned in for cash or whether any gun was used in one or more crimes.
In recent years, there have been a few experimental attempts to expand the service for more general transactions, allowing local merchants to buy and sell goods through the boxes at a price. These have only met with modest success so far, not least because of about the capture and use of user data.
