Any plan to reduce tens of thousands of unserved bench warrants will cost money, but the backlog will continue to grow unless more law enforcement officers are assigned to serve the court orders, according to a task force that studied the problem.

The task force, made up of officials with the judiciary and state and county law enforcement agencies, submitted the report to the state Legislature to deal with what is considered a "dirty little secret" of unserved warrants facing not only the state of Hawai'i and its counties, but other states across the nation.

The group was convened after The Advertiser published its "Justice on Hold" series last year highlighting the backlog. The series reported O'ahu's estimated 61,500 unserved warrants were the result of poor coordination among law enforcement agencies and lack of manpower to serve the warrants, costing the state a potential of $20 million in unpaid fines and fees and undermining public confidence in the law.

"Although tasked to develop a comprehensive plan going beyond fiscal solutions, the task force recognizes that most, if not all, of its recommendations have budgetary implications, some of which may be extraordinary," the report said.

"Even if all of the task force's recommendations are implemented, however, the warrant backlog is expected to grow if the number of law enforcement officers available to serve warrants does not keep pace with the ever-increasing number of outstanding warrants."

The report did not detail the amount of additional money that must be spent to deal with all aspects of the warrants backlog.

But based on figures previously supplied by the state Department of Public Safety, 20 more full-time deputy sheriffs would take 2 1/2 years to clear the backlog of outstanding traffic warrants, at a cost of at least $2.5 million.

Deputy Attorney General Diane Taira, task force co-chairperson, said lack of time was one reason the group did not determine cost estimates of the various proposed solutions. In addition, some agencies that might be involved were not part of the task force, she said.

As an example, she said one proposed solution was to tag state tax returns of people with outstanding warrants, but the state Tax Department was not part of the task force, she said.

"We did not feel we had enough to go ahead with cost analyses," she said.

74,000 WARRANTS

The report also said an effective system to deal with the warrants will require "communication and full participation" among law enforcement agencies and the judiciary.

The task force estimated the number of unserved bench warrants for O'ahu and Neighbor Islands to be nearly 74,000 as of July and August last year. About 51,000 of the warrants were generated by traffic courts.

Nearly 20,000 more involved misdemeanor nontraffic crimes and the balance were for parole and probation violations, grand jury indictments and juvenile cases.

The report verified The Advertiser's earlier findings that a new judiciary computer system meant to streamline court operations was actually aggravating the problem of unserved arrest warrants. The new Judiciary Information Management System, or JIMS, was supposed to include a new "paperless" arrest warrants feature that allowed law enforcement agencies to store outstanding warrants electronically and print them only at the time of arrest.

JIMS went online in November 2005, but the new paperless warrants feature still doesn't work.

"One of the problems in the timely creation of warrants is caused by the new JIMS system," the task force reported.

"Although the JIMS system was created to bring the court's technology up to current standards, it actually requires more manual data entry and does not allow for 'batching,' (creation of multiple warrants at one time).

"This creates a strain on court staff, causes a delay in the physical creation of warrants and delays the time the warrants are available for service."

Judiciary spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa last month said that "Judiciary officials are exploring the feasibility of implementing a paperless warrant system with a particular consultant and believe it is too early to be able to determine when the project will be implemented."

The first phase of JIMS, which includes the electronic warrants feature, has cost some $13 million.

NO AMNESTY

The group came up with a series of recommendations, including a central database of unserved warrants and additional notification methods for people with outstanding warrants.

It did not agree on proposed solutions that include providing amnesty for imprisoned felons and setting time limits on the age of warrants, but allowing law enforcement to request reissuing serious old ones.

Taira said one result of the task force meetings is that the various law enforcement and other agencies involved with serving the warrants have started talking about the issue.

"There is to some extent a greater appreciation among the various stakeholders as to what the various roles are, what the various challenges are and the reasons for those challenges," she said.

"I think that was healthy and it will promote a further, fruitful dialogue ... "

The task force included members of the state judiciary, the Attorney General's Office, the Department of Public Safety, police departments and prosecuting attorney offices from Honolulu and the three Neighbor Islands, the Hawai'i Paroling Authority and the office of public defender.

The group was mandated last year by state lawmakers who called for a review by the Attorney General's Office and the Judiciary Council. Because the two reviews would be similar, the attorney general and judiciary officials agreed to address the matter jointly by the task force.

The state Legislature opens its session on Jan. 17.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com and Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.