See http:\/\/media.csosa.gov<\/a> for our television shows, blog and transcripts.<\/p>\n

Radio Program available at http:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/audio\/2011\/07\/dc-safe-surrender-2011-an-interview-with-us-marshal-hedgepeth\/<\/a><\/p>\n

We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http:\/\/twitter.com\/lensipes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Audio Begins]<\/p>\n

Cedric Hendricks: This is Cedric Hendricks for DC Public Safety.\u00a0 With us today is US Marshal, Thomas Hedgepeth, who will talk with us about DC Safe Surrender.\u00a0 Marshal Hedgepeth, what is DC Safe Surrender?<\/p>\n

Marshal Thomas Hedgepeth:\u00a0 DC Safe Surrender is an opportunity for persons who within our community, who have outstanding warrants of judiciary issues that have not been addressed, an opportunity to come in a safe haven type environment, to come in and address these issues in a non-confrontational way that\u2019s beneficial both to the community as well as the defendant and\/or respondents.<\/p>\n

Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Now how is it beneficial?\u00a0 Can you be a bit specific there?<\/p>\n

Marshal Thomas Hedgepeth:\u00a0 It is extremely beneficial from the standpoint, first of all from a law enforcement perspective, it allows the police to focus on more violent crimes and it doesn\u2019t take away from community and public policing.\u00a0 This allows us to focus on other criminal elements at large.\u00a0 It allows us to keep those resources free while allowing other people to come in and voluntarily, of their own free will, and address their issues that are outstanding within the court.\u00a0 It promotes efficiency within the court system and allows us to marshal our resources on keeping the violent offenders off the streets.<\/p>\n

Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Now this safe surrender has been a national initiative of the United States Marshal Service.\u00a0 How successful has it been across the country?<\/p>\n

Marshal Thomas Hedgepeth:\u00a0 Cedric, it\u2019s been an extremely successful initiative.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had over 27,000 persons who participated in a program.\u00a0 We have hundreds of success stories have come.\u00a0 And they\u2019ve had a chance now to address those issues that have been outstanding for perhaps weeks, months or years.\u00a0 It gives them the satisfaction of knowing they\u2019ve dealt with an issue.\u00a0 They no longer have to look behind their back, look over their head every time an issue comes up.\u00a0 It gives them an opportunity to move forward with their lives and it frees up the court docket from dealing with the issue in the future so we can go and address future needs of the community and the citizens for the district or any other community that we\u2019re involved in.<\/p>\n

Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Now Safe Surrender was done back in 2007 here in the District of Columbia and it was a truly collaborative project.\u00a0 And it involved the Marshal Service, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, the Parole Commission, the courts.\u00a0 Why is this type of collaboration essential to make this an extremely successful event?<\/p>\n

Marshal Thomas Hedgepeth:\u00a0 It is absolutely essential.\u00a0\u00a0 This is a partnership.\u00a0 The courts, public defenders service, the Marshal, the Attorney\u2019s office, Metropolitan Police Department, we all have one common goal and that\u2019s to keep our city streets safe.\u00a0 We want every citizen to walk the street and feel comfortable walking the street.\u00a0 And the way we do that is through a collaborative effort.\u00a0 It gives us a chance to marshal our resources, as well like to say it, have the most bang for our buck.<\/p>\n

Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Now<\/p>\n

Marshal Thomas Hedgepeth:\u00a0 It really gives an opportunity to stretch your arms out and touch a lot more people.<\/p>\n

Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Now I understand back in 2007, about 530 individuals surrendered.\u00a0 Do you have a goal for this Safe Surrender experience?\u00a0 Are we looking for more people to turn themselves in or not?<\/p>\n

Marshal Thomas Hedgepeth:\u00a0 Actually for this one, our goals are a bit less modest.\u00a0 We\u2019re actually hoping to get a few hundred people to turn themselves in.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had a couple of warrant initiatives that we\u2019ve actually had the opportunity to go out and do over the past couple of months.\u00a0 And we have one or two more scheduled for the year.\u00a0 And of course, our goal is to focus on violent offenders during those initiatives and this gives an opportunity for us to focus on those as well as for other people to come in, do the right thing, get these issues resolved so that when we come knocking, we won\u2019t be knocking on their doors.<\/p>\n

Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Now I understand that the Safe Surrender Program is targeting folks with non-violent felonies, misdemeanor warrants and does not include violent felonies or domestic violence warrants.\u00a0 Why is that the case?<\/p>\n

Marshal Thomas Hedgepeth:\u00a0 Well Cedric, actually the primary reason is because we target that audience because unfortunately people may not realize, but the vast majority of our warrants are non-violent offenders.\u00a0 I mean while violent offenders may get a higher amount of press play, in effect, most of our citizens who get involved within the legal system are brought in for non-violent offenses.<\/p>\n

Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Now when and where will DC Safe Surrender take place?<\/p>\n

Marshal Thomas Hedgepeth:\u00a0 It\u2019s going to take place August 13, 20, and 27 of this year.\u00a0 And it\u2019s going to be held at the courthouse.\u00a0 And what it\u2019s going to afford is the people to come in, speak to lawyers, counselors, the judges and address their issues, get those issues resolved, be given future court dates to come back if it can\u2019t be resolved that day.\u00a0 And we\u2019re looking for a really wonderful turnout and a very, very successful event this time around.<\/p>\n

Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Well, I want to thank you.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been talking with US Marshal Thomas Hedgepeth about DC Safe Surrender.<\/p>\n

Marshal Thomas Hedgepeth:\u00a0 Thank you very much.<\/p>\n

Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Thank you sir.<\/p>\n

[Audio Ends]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

See http:\/\/media.csosa.gov for our television shows, blog and transcripts. Radio Program available at http:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/audio\/2011\/07\/dc-safe-surrender-2011-an-interview-with-us-marshal-hedgepeth\/ We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http:\/\/twitter.com\/lensipes. [Audio Begins] Cedric Hendricks: This is Cedric Hendricks for DC Public Safety.\u00a0 With us today is US Marshal, Thomas Hedgepeth, who will talk with us about DC Safe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,12,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiopodcast","category-fugitivesafesurrender","category-interviewswithpolicymakers","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pBoKk-bj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":703,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions\/703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}