As part of an effort to shrink the backlog of unserved warrants, Anne Arundel County sheriff's deputies arrested 11 people and served 16 warrants over the weekend during a sweep of Glen Burnie.
The backlog stood at 11,234 at the end of June, down nearly 800 from the start of the year.
Sheriff Ronald S. Bateman said he is picking away at old warrants, some of which are more than two decades old, and recently worked out plans to erase about 400 warrants because the people sought are dead.
Other efforts, some of which were in place as his predecessor sought to reduce the backlog, include threatening to suspend the driver's licenses of people with outstanding warrants and having prosecutors review warrants for nonviolent misdemeanors more than 3 years old.
In addition, the Anne Arundel County's Most Wanted cable-access TV show has gotten a facelift.
Bateman said he expects his office to do up to six larger sweeps a year, such as one in June in which 30 people were arrested and 37 warrants served, plus more frequent, smaller ones.
The majority of the outstanding warrants are for minor offenses, such as failure to appear in traffic court.
That was the case on Friday and Saturday, when deputies attempted to serve more than 100 open warrants in Glen Burnie.
Because of the volume of new warrants coming in - some 1,180 a month - deputies move on to other warrants when they cannot find the person after a few attempts.
The department's Web site, www.aacounty.org/Sheriff/MostWanted.cfm, includes a list of names of people with open warrants.