That number is supposed to reflect the warrants served and not served.

Now in effect for two months, the law has some police worried that the requirement takes too much time.

Others, including the legislator who spearheaded the legislation, say they'd like to see the law expanded to the entire system of warrants.

The re-arrest warrants are for people who either bonded out and did not return to court or who violated the terms of probation.

“Mayors will hopefully pick up the phone and say to their police department: What are you guys doing about them?” said state Rep. Bob Farr, R-West Hartford.

The new law requires police departments to report the number of outstanding re-arrest warrants for people in their municipalities to the state Office of Policy and Management, which then sends the information to the municipality, along with electronic notes about efforts to serve them.

The warrants, available to police through a system called PRAWN, which stands for Paperless Rearrest Warrant Network and covers two-thirds of the state, have been computerized since 2003.

All other warrants — for everything from murder to shoplifting — are typed out and put on paper, then shuffled through the police and court systems.

While police departments are required to enter basic information about those warrants into a system called COLLECT, which feeds into a national database available to all police officers, Farr said many warrants are never entered.

With PRAWN, however, a re-arrest warrant exists only if it is entered into the system electronically, he said.

Farr is fighting for the entire warrant system to become paperless.

“There is nobody in the state of Connecticut that has any idea how many warrants are outstanding,” he said.

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Groton City Sgt. Bob Martin said that, for a small department like Groton City's — with 29 officers — the new law is a burden.

“This is the most significant change I've seen in a decade on everything we do,” he said.

With paper warrants, he said, a department is responsible only for arresting suspects on warrants it has issued. With the paperless system and the new law, a police department is now responsible for every suspect whose last known address was in its jurisdiction.

“Not that you don't want to do it. I just don't have time,” Martin said.

Lt. Timothy Menard at the Norwich City Police Department said departments are especially offended by the notion that warrants are “just being placed in a drawer.”

Menard said that while it is good to know who is living within his jurisdiction, even if a crime has been committed elsewhere, it is burdensome and time-consuming to enter notes into the system.

“In some big cities, they're going to have a hard time keeping up,” he said.

Still some departments have said the new law is needed.

“I think there may be a status in many agencies where, if you were going to go in and review arrest warrants, you'd find warrants that were four, five and six years old that had a minimum attempt to serve them,” said Waterford police Chief Murray Pendleton.