Warrant roundup draws to a close

The great Scofflaw Roundup that we heard about last month is now over.

Houston was among 153 cities that participated in the so-called "Great Texas Warrant Round-up," which began March 3 and ended Saturday at midnight. The joint effort was aimed at clearing an estimated 1 million outstanding municipal warrants statewide.

The final tally of people arrested and fines paid will be disclosed later this week. On Saturday, Houston police and municipal court officials did not have preliminary figures.

Presiding Municipal Court Judge Bertha A. Mejia said, however, that the courts were "very, very busy" during the roundup.

"Some of them are paying off their fines, and some ask to be seen by a judge, and they are asking for time to pay."

And some spent a little time in the pokey, from whence they emerged with a clean slate. Which is why I was interested from the beginning not in just how much money was collected from how many delinquents, but also in how many delinquents spent time in our already-overcrowded jail as their payment. I hope we'll find that out when the official statistics are released.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on March 12, 2007 to Crime and Punishment