Program Helps Clear Up Warrants

The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department has been able to clear more warrants this year than it did last year thanks to the Warrant Round Up program, Sheriff Pierce Clegg said Wednesday.

At the beginning of 1996, the sheriff’s department, in conjunction with local newspapers, began publishing the names of wanted people.

Every Monday, The Idaho Spokesman-Review runs a list of those wanted people on the Chronicle page in The Handle section.

The people are wanted for serious crimes such as rape and theft.

The list also include names of people wanted for not paying outstanding fines.

Through the first nine months of the program, 464 of the listed 981 warrants have been cleared, Clegg said. That’s 47 percent. The department had hoped to have a 10 percent clearance rate.

In the first nine months of this year, the court has closed 275 contempt warrants by wanted people coming in and paying their fines.

That is compared to the 140 contempt warrants cleared for all of 1995, Clegg said.

That has brought in $73,460 to the county so far in 1996, compared to $38,949 last year.

The newspaper listing has encouraged people to take care of their warrants instead of facing exposure in the local papers. It also has brought in numerous tips which have lead to the arrests of wanted criminals, sheriff’s officials said.

, DataTimes