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Published April 25, 2008 02:31 pm - From time to time, all of us need a fresh start. Mired in poor decisions we’ve made or unfortunate situations we find ourselves in, it’s often difficult to right our own ship, to restore a sense of normalcy to our lives.
In Our View: We all need a Fresh Start
From time to time, all of us need a fresh start. Mired in poor decisions we’ve made or unfortunate situations we find ourselves in, it’s often difficult to right our own ship, to restore a sense of normalcy to our lives. We need help to set things right, to get a clean slate.
Thirty people found themselves in that situation Saturday; they were looking for an opportunity to resolve outstanding court citations against them. The city of Joplin scheduled a special Saturday session of municipal court called ‘Fresh Start’ at a downtown church in an effort to reduce a crowded court docket while ensuring that the offenders paid for their crimes.
Sixty warrants from 30 people were cleared that Saturday morning. With more than 4,000 outstanding city warrants, it would be easy to be disappointed with the percentage of warrants that were cleared in the first “Fresh Start.”
But if you dig deeper, you see the tremendous difference that programs such as these offer to those offenders and to the community as a whole. Fresh Start offered those with outstanding warrants a chance to right their ship by paying for their crimes and receiving a clean slate. It allowed the legal system an opportunity to clear an overloaded court docket and to dispense justice quickly and fairly.
We laud the boldness of the idea and those who organized it and who worked that Saturday morning.
We commend those offenders who overcame their fears and acknowledged their crimes. For most, the fear that Fresh Start was some sort of trap or scam kept them out of the church. But for those 30 who overcame their fears, we challenge them to make the most of their new beginning.
Lastly, we challenge the city to offer Fresh Start again and soon. In this situation, we all benefited from this fresh start.
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