New York’s Mayor Bloomberg has begun a program that will issue discounts to protesters of the Republican Convention if they promise to protest peacefully. Interestingly, it offers discounts from a number of places in New York.

Let me tell you why this might not work.

While a protestor, let’s call her Jane, may buy into the mayor’s program for all the discounts, perhaps she unwittingly gets a little drunk that night, and the next morning when she goes out to protest, she’s a little hammered and forgets about the peaceful protest promise she made. Thus, she starts banging heads around, with no regard to some discount program she could care less about.

Okay, a little unrealistic, but you get the point – mob mentalities are such that you cannot predict whether someone who had previously promised to be peaceful will turn violent. It’s a basic element of psychology and well-documented: people tend to follow the actions of a larger group, and if that larger group is being violent, then the possibility is significantly higher that our dear Jane will be violent as well.

This may recall the Seattle WTO riots a few years ago — pretty much the exact same thing.

So, therefore, good effort, Mr. Bloomberg, but it may not stop violence.