I will discuss criminal arrest warrants in today’s column.

Several warrants can be issued in Illinois. They include failure-to-appear warrants, bench warrants and search warrants. My column will focus on arrest warrants.

If you think there is anybody out there at a local level hunting down fugitives, looking for offenders who skip court, you’re wrong. Most police agencies in Illinois, certainly at the regional level, do not have the staff, resources or funding to hunt down individuals wanted on warrants from arrests that the agency has made.

There are three types of warrants in this category. They include failure-to-appear warrants, which are exactly what the name indicates and are issued when arrestees do not show up for their first court date. There are also bench warrants, issued by judges to arrest a person. Lastly, there are original warrants, which are issued when the police know the suspect but have not yet taken him into custody.

In Illinois, when an individual is arrested and misses his first court date, a bench warrant is issued for their arrest. However, this is no longer always the case under the Safety Act.

Shockingly, if you fail to appear for your court date in Cook County and other counties, you are sent a postcard – yes, a postcard – and probably two or three times before a judge issues a failure-to-appear warrant.

That warrant is then sent to the police department that made the original arrest and entered it into the statewide data system called LEADS, which stands for Law Enforcement Agency Data System. This system theoretically lets any police department in Illinois make that arrest based on the warrant. In reality, that doesn’t always happen.

Several years ago, the court system established a policy called Geographical Limitations on Warrants. This means that police agencies are only authorized to arrest individuals within the geographic boundaries specified on a warrant.

Sometimes, a judge sets the geographic limits, and other times, although rarely, a statewide warrant is issued. Having a geographic restriction on your warrant means that, for example, if you are arrested in Cook County, the warrant can be limited to allow detention only in Cook, McHenry and Will County, for instance. So, if you are stopped in Springfield, Illinois, and a warrant for your arrest is outstanding, Springfield police cannot arrest you based solely on that warrant.

I know that sounds ridiculous, and it is, but that has been the case for some time. Therefore, if you believe that a warrant allows police to find you anywhere in Illinois, that’s not true – at least in most cases.

Which warrants can be issued statewide? They are usually violent felony warrants and sometimes domestic violence warrants. Why is this important? It’s because when you’re a victim of a crime, you sign a complaint and go to court to prosecute the offender. That offender does not believe that a warrant has been issued or that the police are actively searching for him, so your case can be resolved in the justice system, but that’s not true.

This is why victims often lose interest in prosecution, become disillusioned with the entire system and blame the police or courts for its dysfunction. Are they wrong? Usually, a warrant is entered into the system, and police wait for that individual to be rearrested. When they are charged, the warrant will then be activated and served.

However, this allows the individual to continue committing crimes while wanted on an active warrant. If you commit crimes and are not arrested, and you’re wanted on a warrant, you can keep committing crimes. What a terrible way to run our system.

Is a change needed in this warrant system? I strongly believe that warrant arrests should be handled anywhere in the state. I know some of my law enforcement colleagues disagree with this view. However, my belief is that if you’re not willing to go after the person wanted on the warrant, then you shouldn’t request the warrant itself or add it to the statewide warrant system. It’s as simple as that.

One agency nationwide does an exceptional job of hunting down fugitives is the U.S. Marshals’ Fugitive Task Force. Every police agency in the country uses the U.S. Marshal’s Task Force at some point for fugitive apprehensions.

Suppose you have a violent, felony warrant for someone and you suspect that they may have fled the state or are at a location that’s hard to reach. In that case, you can request help from the U.S. Marshal Service. And I can tell you firsthand, they are outstanding, and they regularly succeed in arresting the wanted individuals.

In Illinois alone, there are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of active criminal arrest warrants. No one is actively searching for many of them. It’s time to start.

• Tom Weitzel is the former chief of the Riverside Police Department and spent 37 years in law enforcement. He can be reached at tqweitzel@outlook.com. Follow him on X at @chiefweitzel or TikTok at tiktok.com/@chiefweitzel.