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DeWine touts success of Safe Surrender
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DeWine
By Jordan Cohen
WARREN
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says the three-day Fugitive Safe Surrender program last week in Trumbull and Columbiana counties was so successful that he plans on having another one in Mahoning County this fall.
Fugitive Safe Surrender enabled people on outstanding warrants for fines and other misdemeanor offenses to surrender at First United Methodist Church in Warren or Lisbon Church of the Nazarene last Thursday through Saturday. At the churches, deputies processed their papers, and municipal judges heard the cases in separate rooms at the churches.
Figures released by DeWine’s office show that 111 voluntarily surrendered in Trumbull County while 24 turned themselves in in Columbiana County. Some of those surrendering did not have any outstanding warrants but were concerned about violations with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, which had representatives at the two churches. Three wanted on felonies also surrendered, two in Warren and one in Lisbon who had six outstanding felony warrants. He and one of the Warren accused felons were the only ones remanded to jail by the judges.
There are still nearly 5,000 outstanding warrants in Trumbull County and 3,000 in Columbiana County, figures well above the surrender totals, but DeWine said his program has to be measured by other standards.
“I think this program has been a success because of the number of lives that were fundamentally changed by coming in,” DeWine told The Vindicator on Sunday. He cited as examples Kyle Presjak, a former Cortland resident who returned to Warren from Texas to clear his driving record so he can get a job, and another man who had undergone cancer treatments and decided to voluntarily surrender as another way of getting his life back together.
Nearly 120 misdemeanor warrants were cleared in the two counties by Saturday evening.
“It will be very interesting to see how this goes in Mahoning County,” said DeWine, who plans to announce the date for the Fugitive Safe Surrender program sometime this week. “There is a learning curve here, and it takes time for the word to spread in the community.”
Still, the remaining number of warrants concerns the attorney general. “It’s a dangerous thing when you have that many people with outstanding warrants living in the shadows,” DeWine said. “It’s not healthy for them and for the community.”
DeWine said financing is a concern, and he is hoping to secure private donations to continue Fugitive Safe Surrender. His office, which is reimbursing Trumbull County law enforcement $13,000 and Columbiana $4,000, does not have the funds to administer the program throughout the state.
“We’ve had some charitable contributions that have helped fund us, and that’s going to have to continue,” DeWine said.
DeWine said Fugitive Safe Surrender should not be viewed as a method of collecting fines and that the program’s success will be based more on the quality of life than on clearing paperwork.
“We want to get the message across to people that they can get back into society and don’t have to be running,” DeWine said. “We’re holding them accountable in a way they can deal with and live with.”