Number 260                                                                                              October 2001

U.S. Department of Transportation
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
400 Seventh Street, S.W., Washington, DC 20590

Outstanding Warrants For Dwi Offenders A Problem Searching For Quantification And Resolution

One loophole in the adjudication and sanction process of Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) cases is the number of individuals arrested for DWI who fail to appear (FTA) in court for adjudication or sanction or fail to comply (FTC) with court ordered sanctions. Usually these inactions lead to a warrant action. An arrest warrant is an order directing a law enforcement agency to seize an individual to answer a complaint. While the vast majority of warrants are issued by courts, other agencies such as parole boards and correction departments are authorized in some states to issue arrest warrants. Bench warrants are usually issued by a judge for persons who fail to appear in court. Locating these individuals who are wanted for outstanding warrants has proved difficult in many places.

Mid-America Research Institute conducted a study for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to examine the extent of the outstanding DWI warrant problem in locations across the country. The study examined situations that lead to the issuance of warrants and identified promising strategies to minimize the outstanding DWI warrant problem.

In some cases, a failure to appear is a deliberate attempt by a defendant to avoid receiving or fulfilling sanctions. Sometimes, however, such actions are not intentional. They occasionally result from defendants not receiving or understanding instructions about where and when to appear in court.

Deliberate FTAs and FTCs are the more important traffic safety concern, but non-deliberate absences are also a waste of time and resources that could be better spent on other anti-DWI related activities. Nationwide, the relative magnitude of these two types of absences are not known.

Documenting the Problem
Many jurisdictions were not able to provide data easily and could not assess how large a problem may (or may not) exist with FTA and FTC behavior in their community. After contacting many jurisdictions, warrant data were collected from 19 sites and were supplemented with interviews with key people about their warrant process. Focus groups were conducted at a regional meeting of highway safety professionals and visits were made to three sites to learn more about innovative local programs.

Many Jurisdictions Have No Data
Many jurisdictions do not keep warrant data or do not have systems in place to determine the extent of the outstanding DWI warrant problem in their community. Many were unable to distinguish between FTA versus FTC warrants. Sometimes, records on outstanding warrants are purged from the database when the person contacts the court or is arrested, making it difficult to learn the true number of FTAs and FTCs and the length of time the warrants were outstanding. Without available data at all sites, there was no way to estimate the magnitude of the problem across the country or to compare sites.

It was learned, however, that for many localities, this is a substantial problem, with the number of outstanding warrants running into the thousands or the tens of thousands. In some cases, officials were not aware of the problem because the data had not been analyzed previously or, in other cases, there were no resources available to combat the problem. Law enforcement agencies often have limited personnel and budgets, and, in many places, warrant squads give priority to persons wanted for "more serious offenses" than DWI charges. Outstanding warrants for FTC with sanctions usually means non-payment of fines and has resulted in such a large backlog of outstanding DWI warrants, that alternative solutions are now being explored. Two alternatives are to target individuals who owe large amounts and then paying for the squad with those funds, or to hand those cases over to a collection agency.

Methods Law Enforcement Agencies Use to Serve Warrants

• Dedicated Warrant Officer(s) -- The primary job of these officers is to serve warrants.
• Special Emphasis Squads or "Stings"-- These teams are organized periodically to locate and serve warrants.
• Interagency Cooperative Warrant Squads-- Warrant teams are staffed by a number of law enforcement agencies who cooperate to serve warrants.
• Part of a Full-Fledged, Anti-DWI Program-- Warrant services are handled routinely as a part of an existing anti-DWI program.
• Routine Warrant Service by Arresting Officers-- Warrants are handled by the original arresting officer or agency.

Innovative Programs
Hancock County, Indiana The overriding problem in this county was offenders who fail to comply with sanctions, including payment of fines. One officer was hired through a grant to work on the outstanding warrant problem, not all for DWI cases. Over four years, he has served 1,000 warrants. When fines are paid, money goes back to the county and the program should eventually pay for itself.

Chemung County, New York: Staff with the STOP DWI program determined that there were many outstanding warrants and estimated that most of these defaulters owed fines and that if these fines could be collected, they would pay for the overtime of officers involved in a warrants sweep. During the first sweep, 14 people with outstanding DWI warrants were picked up and another 110 offenders turned themselves in to avoid arrest. Chemung County plans to conduct three to four warrant sweeps each year and to publicize the names of those with outstanding DWI warrants on their web page.

Pierce County, Washington: Law enforcement agencies in Pierce County often work together on special DWI patrols. One patrol was dedicated to rounding up the outstanding warrants. The agencies worked with the jails and courts to prepare for the extra number of offenders who would be arriving and with the media to publicize the effort.

Summary
In many jurisdictions, a substantial number of DWI offenders fall through the cracks and are never convicted in court or fail to comply with their sanctions. They fail to compensate society or receive the rehabilitative benefits of their sanctions. Many jurisdictions do not have the data capabilities to recognize and quantify this problem, nor do they have the resources to effectively deal with this issue.

Most of the recommendations contained in the report are those that could help local agencies, such as:

• Develop better data systems to identify and track the outstanding DWI problem at the local, and if possible, state level.
• Provide incentives (funding) to law enforcement agencies to focus on outstanding DWI warrants.
• If warrant sweeps are planned, coordinate closely with all relevant agencies.
• Focus on the newest warrants first, then as time allows, work on older warrants.

HOW TO ORDER

For a copy of A Study Of Outstanding DWI Warrants (125 pages) write to the Office of Research and Traffic Records, NHTSA, NTS-31, 400 Seventh Street, S.W., Washington, DC 20590; or send a fax to (202) 366-7096. Amy Berning was the contract manager for this study.

U.S. Department
of Transportation
National Highway
Traffic Safety
Administration
400 Seventh Street, S.W. NTS-31
Washington, DC 20590

Traffic Tech is a publication to disseminate information about traffic safety programs, including evaluations, innovative programs, and new publications. Feel free to copy it as you wish.

If you would like to receive a copy contact:

Linda Cosgrove, Ph.D., Editor, Evaluation Staff
Traffic Safety Programs
(202) 366-2759, fax (202) 366-7096
E-MAIL: lcosgrove@nhtsa.dot.gov