Credit: Freya Lowy Clark for The 19th
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Cierra walked into the Bowens Senior Center with trepidation, but also hope.
The promotional flier that brought the mother of three to this community center a few miles outside of Detroit offered to help people eliminate any active warrants for their arrest — people like her, who had a warrant for a years-old traffic violation.
But something else on the flier also caught her attention: Along with promising no arrests, it highlighted that child care would be provided. So Cierra brought her four-year-old daughter and dropped her off with a volunteer at a multi-colored bounce house just a few feet from the makeshift courtroom inside. A handful of local attorneys and judges who volunteered their Saturday to help process cases waited behind the doors.
“The child care is why I showed up,” said Cierra, who asked that her last name not be published because her case dealt with sensitive legal matters. “Being able to bring my child without fear of being arrested is everything.”
Cierra was among dozens of people who came out in early June for the so-called warrant clinic, one in a series of nationwide events that aims to address active warrants, usually those tied to outstanding traffic violations and misdemeanors. The periodic one-day events can be life-changing. People with lifted warrants can get back a driver’s license. They can apply for jobs. They can seek services that help with housing and food insecurity. They can also vote.
“We are adding capacity to the justice system,” said Anza Becnel, the creator of the warrant clinics and the founder and executive director of Growing Real Alternatives Everywhere (GRAE), a nonprofit that helps organize the clinics. “We are adding capacity to things that we’ve identified that the community needs.”
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