Blue Collar Muse

When Law Enforcement finds something that works, they should use it. If it depends on secrecy to work, then the rest of the country, if they happen to find out about it, should keep their mouths shut! I’m reminded of the brilliant scheme police used to lure criminals into turning themselves in and which was widely written about and even featured as a major scene in a motion picture.

Perhaps the thinking was that criminals themselves would spread the word so quickly the technique would rapidly lose its effectiveness. Perhaps. Still, I remember seeing it written about in national media a few years after the movie and it was still working. Perhaps I’m wrong and the bad guys don’t go to the movies or read the paper all that much.

Other Law Enforcement programs require publicity to work. I found out about one of those today and thought to add to the awareness both here in Nashville and in other areas for those that might benefit from it. Local blogger Jeffraham Prestonian posted about it in ‘My Salvation’ relating a possible solution to a nagging problem he faced. What to do about two missed court dates for minor traffic offenses from a couple of years ago. His answer may lie in a new program Nashville is rolling out August 1-4.

The program is called ‘Fugitive Safe Surrender’ and, as reported in The City Paper, Nashville will be the 5th city to try it since its inception in 2005.

“This is not a trick. This is for real,” said the Rev. Michael Joyner of the Interdenominational Ministers Fellowship, who joined Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas, District Attorney General Torry Johnson, U.S. Attorney Craig Morford and U.S. Marshal Denny King to announce the program.

Nashville will become only the fifth city nationwide to participate in a program that officials said is usually greeted with skepticism but that has been tremendously successful.

Since 2005, 3,800 men and women have surrendered in the four cities — Cleveland and Akron, Ohio, Phoenix and Indianapolis — where the program has been offered.

“The first day we had 40,” Morford said. “Then word spread, and by the fourth day we were overwhelmed.”

Officials are hoping to replicate that success here.

While it may seem like something of a waste of time or like the police are not doing their job at first blush, the reality of the program is that, not only is it effective, it is something else - it is much safer than the usual manner in which such matters are resolved. Safer both for police and for the offender.

When Police Chief Ron Serpas was quoted as saying, “Almost always, people who flee traffic stops do so because of outstanding warrants and it puts a lot of people in danger.”, I remembered from just last night, when my son and I watched a TV show about wild police chases, that I thought it odd the number of times the narrator stated that the fleeing suspect turned out to have outstanding warrants.

Then, while researching this post I did a Google search on “Officers shot serving warrants”. That one search returned 1,680,000 results. The first page of results referenced the following cities:Cleveland, San Francisco, Dallas, Charlotte, Milwaukee, Wilmington, Miami and Nashville. Not all the results were for people shooting cops. Some were for cops shooting people. It would appear that Serpas’ point about the business of outstanding warrants putting people in danger has application beyond just traffic chases.

Fugitive Safe Surrender seeks to take some of the danger and shame out of the process. The actual surrendering won’t even be at a police station, it will be at a church. Under the program

…the Galilee Baptist Church in North Nashville will transformed into a courthouse from Aug. 1-4, and those persons with outstanding warrants for non-violent criminal offenses who come to church to surrender “stand a good chance of clearing up their warrants on the spot without going to jail,” police said.

Former Cleveland-based U.S. Attorney Craig Morford started the program there with a U.S. Marshal, and 850 fugitives turned themselves in “safely and with dignity” in a week’s time.

“We want lots of participants,” King said. “But if we can stop one confrontation, if we can keep one officer safe, if we can relieve the pain for one family, this Fugitive Safe Surrender will be a success.”

It is under the auspices of promoting public safety that officials say they will be willing to offer fugitives a chance to clear up their non-violent warrants without taking them away to jail in handcuffs, as police officers currently do if they encounter someone with an outstanding warrant during the course of their patrols.

Johnson said he was unable to describe in detail how differently prosecutors will handle those who turn themselves in, saying all cases will be handled individually.

“But we will take that good faith effort into account and be as fair as reasonable as we can be,” he said.

Joyner said that the Fugitive Safe Surrender program will also offer job applications and even job training to as many persons as possible, making the incentive for fugitives to turn themselves in at the church even greater.

“We will do whatever we can to give that second chance,” Joyner said.

All in all, it would seem to be a win-win situation. This isn’t an amnesty, there will be consequences for the bad behavior of the offenders. But it seems far more preferable to have one’s problems resolved in this way than in any one of several others I can think of. Kudos to Nashville and its law enforcement professionals!

Now, if we can keep the ACLU from having kittens that it’s being held in a church and if we get the word out that the program is both available and legit, we’ll have a great result to report on in a couple of weeks. And maybe Jeffraham and others like him will be able to walk tall without looking over their shoulders with the theme from ‘COPS’ playing in their minds …

“Bad boys, bad boys - whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”

Thinking there are better ways to spend a Saturday night than spread eagled on a Metro police car hood and then being left alone in a cell with my new special friend for an hour or three …

Blue Collar Muse

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Individual Responsibility, Law Enforcement, Nashville Nuggets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.