BOONEVILLE — The Booneville Police Department’s initiative of listing on Facebook the names of people who have warrants has proved successful, according to Lt. Steve Reid.

“It’s basically a way to get the information out that we have these warrants,” Reid said. “A lot of them have been issued, and the people may or may not know that they have the warrant.”

Booneville police started using the department’s Facebook page to list the names of those with warrants in mid-October, Reid said.

“So far, the response has been really good,” he said. “We’ve been contacted by phone, and we’ve had people who stop in here. We’ve gotten in more warrants than I expected served.”

Of the 30 people listed on the Police Department’s Facebook page so far, eight have responded.

“Which I think is a pretty significant number, considering a majority of them we didn’t know where they were and that they were living out of state,” Reid said.

The wanted individuals listed on Facebook can go to the Police Department and make arrangements for a court date without being arrested, Reid said.

The suspects listed on the page are only those wanted on misdemeanor offenses.

“We’re not doing any that are failure to appear or failure to pay fines,” he said. “These range from theft of rented property to harassment.”

Of the department’s approximately 400 misdemeanor warrants, about 25 percent qualify to be posted on Facebook, Reid said.

The sheriff has also used Facebook as a means to give notice of warrants and ultimately get the warrants served, Reid said.

Franklin County Sheriff Anthony Boen said the names of wanted suspects have been listed on his office’s Facebook page for at least two years.

By posting the names on Facebook, Boen said, there is a good chance that even if the suspect does not see the listing, someone will tell him.

“People will call us and say, ‘I heard from someone that I got a warrant,’ or [someone] will message us on Facebook and notify us of where a [suspect] is living or has moved to,” Boen said.

With the Facebook warrant initiative, Reid said, officers have less difficulty tracking down wanted suspects.

“The more we can get served and out of our hands and into the system, the better off we are,” he said.

“It definitely saves time and money.”

Arkansas, Pages 19 on 12/02/2012