Cowtown bucks Great Texas Warrant Roundup

Fort Worth may be the first Texas city to pull out of the so-called "Great Texas Warrant Roundup," according to a report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

now the City of Fort Worth Municipal Court has decided it wants to save you from an embarrassing arrest by bucking the aggressive roundup approach for a more neighborly discourse that it also believes will prove to be more productive. 

"We're calling it Warrant Forgiveness Month,” Municipal Court Director Theresa Ewing said. 

No, it's not wiping the slate for those with Class C warrants, however this new "Court in the Community" initiative — a mobile courthouse coming to a part of town near you — does guarantee an arrest-free encounter while meeting with a municipal judge to arrange a payment plan (or even swapping fines for community service) to make that burdensome warrant a thing of the past. 

The program began to take shape after last year’s Convoy of Hope event at Southwest High School. The Municipal Court was invited to set up a mobile unit, and the people came. Ewing said 87 people were able to rid themselves of warrants by working out a payment plan.

That's what it looks like when government seeks to enforce these petty laws for the public good instead of mere rent seeking motivations. Nobody's getting off the hook, but neither is the focus on a "roundup," as though poor people with unpaid traffic tickets were so many bovine to be punched by armed-and-badged cowboys participating in a human cattle drive.

If this were happening Austin or even Dallas, one might write it off to Democratic officials setting more liberal policies. But that's not what's going on here. "Cowtown" is Trump country, and them dropping the "warrant roundup" may inspire other Texas jurisdictions to follow their lead.

Grits wishes every Texas legislator and staffer, much less every JP, muni court judge and city council person, would read these stories from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about why Fort Worth, a GOP bastion, stopped issuing arrest warrants for most unpaid Class C misdemeanor violations:

• Fort Worth bucks Great Warrant Roundup for kinder approach
• Warrants, jail, and job loss: How unpaid tickets can unravel your life

That second story in particular is a must-read. Add in the Driver Responsibility surcharge on top of the warrants described, and unpaid traffic tickets can become an insurmountable mess.

There has been some legislative push to get at these issues, like SB 1913 from 2017 which eliminated some of the more egregious practices for squeezing blood from stones. But firmer measures like House Corrections Committee Chairman James White's bill to eliminate arrests for traffic ticket debt outright didn't make it through.

Fort Worth's example shows those stronger approaches are workable and should be revisited. We haven't jailed poor people for private debt in America for more than 180 years, and in the 21st century, there's no good excuse for jailing them for traffic-ticket debt, either.