50,000

My own experience of crime in Durham has been that it's decidedly safer than Sacramento or Stockton California, where i spent seven years before moving here in 1993, and had my cars broken into on an annual basis (including once at my daughter's grade school parking lot, and once in a Target parking lot) and my house broken into twice. That said, this really is an astounding piece of information:

Pledges to reform long-standing ills of the criminal justice system in the wake of recent high-profile homicides continued Tuesday, with city and county leaders resolving to make a dent in Durham County's 50,000 unserved arrest warrants.

"We've still been engaged in dynamic inaction on this issue," council member Eugene Brown, who has tried for years to bring attention to the problem, said Tuesday at a joint meeting of city and county elected officials.

"Serving warrants is part of the front line of fighting crime, and we've done a ... lousy job of it."

But Step 1 likely will involve letting thousands off the hook, not making more arrests: Old, low-level misdemeanors will be "purged" from the system altogether.

I once heard that crime doesn't pay. Maybe i was dreaming.