In San Diego, many people who get DUI convictions do not do what they are supposed to do. Attorneys provide the paperwork showing program, MADD, jail, public service but sometimes people don't do everything ordered in a timely manner. Click on this lawyer site if you need to know what to do if you have a DUI warrant out for your arrest.

Every single day, B-2 of the San Diego Union-Tribune Newspaper lists a baker's dozen of crime victims. It is a rare exception that such crimes are not committed by veteran criminals.

San Diego County Sheriff William Gore says, as of November 11, 2011, there were 66,730 arrest warrants outstanding here.

The Department was quick to add the perspective that even that huge number of warrants is less than the same date of the year before when the number was 71,340. So some progress is being made.

The system reports that 43% percent or 28,433 are "bench warrants." Those are orders issued by judges when a defendant simply fails to appear in court as ordered, or fails to comply with some term or condition of probation.

Over 17,000 of the warrants were for felonies. Felonies can be dangerous as in murder, robbery, rape, burglary and battery. Or they can be drug violations of the Health and Safety Code, not likely to affect us directly.

But still, 17,000 felons running loose in our county is frightening.

Nearly an equal number of misdemeanor warrants are outstanding. We can take no comfort in misdemeanors being "lesser crimes" than felonies.

The most common misdemeanors are DUI / drunk driving and domestic violence enormously serious problems in themselves.

San Diego has long been a leader in the effort to improve warrant service.

Long-time readers will remember my crusade as a judge when our warrant balance in this county was an astounding 600,000 and would have been even higher except the courts simply "discharged from accountability" any warrant that was over 5 years old.

We reduced that outrageous balance by recalling the 500,000 that had been foolishly issued for failure to appear on minor traffic matters and turned those over to a collection agency. The county and other local jurisdictions have made millions annually on that decision.

That meant the balance of the warrants were important to the public safety.

The service of warrants in this county, state, and nation remains problematic for several reasons. The law in regards to warrants is vague. Police may serve warrants but are not required to. No agency is statutorily responsible for serving warrants. Judges issue them and then stare at the ceiling hoping that something happens.

As the Sheriff points out, between 4,000 and 5,000 new arrest warrants are issued by the courts each month. Under the weakness in the current law, no police department feels compelled to view warrants with the importance they deserve.

Nor do any public officials seem to care.

The author in the above article is not aware of any letters from the District Attorney, the Presiding Judge, the City Attorney, the Attorney General, or even the Governor urging law enforcement to step up warrant activity or proposing other solutions to the problem of millions of unserved warrants statewide.

If Bonnie Dumanis has written one, I invite her to publish a copy in the Transcript.

I don't know any city council that asks for a monthly report on how their police department is doing keeping warrants in their jurisdiction cleaned up.

I am not aware of any awards for police officers for being the officer who served the most warrants. There are no similar incentives for retention or promotion.

Except for the Sheriff's Court Services Field deputies, there are no officers who consider it a prime element of their job to serve warrants.

There are, from time to time "warrant sweeps' but those efforts are above and beyond the typical duty of a patrol officer and are the exception, not the rule.

Instead patrol officers are encouraged to "preventively patrol' or carry out "community-oriented policing." One is to try to prevent crime by a show of police presence, dubious at best. And the other is community hand holding which is useless.

The best way to fight crime is to arrest criminals. The best way to arrest criminals is to serve warrants and enforce traffic laws with an eye to serving warrants.

Nor is there adequate effort by the state. When fugitives leave the jurisdiction in which they are wanted, they are essentially home free. Other agencies are not aware of warrants from outside their jurisdictions. And even if they were, how are the fugitives to be transported home?

Except for notorious criminals, out of county or state means out of mind.

Both the state and the Federal governments should have warrant enforcement teams and transport systems to facilitate local fugitive apprehension instead of letting one agency dump their trash on others.

There is much to be done to improve warrant enforcement.