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But if you’re indigent or homeless or mentally ill, it can be a very different story. Plenty of the people who get tickets for trespassing, public intoxication or drinking liquor in public are homeless. Many who hop the LRT without paying are poor. And right now, when they don’t pay their tickets on time, they receive heavier fines. And when they don’t pay their fines, if they don’t show up in court? Warrants are issued for their arrest.

And so, in 2016, people actually end up in jail for crossing the street against the light or neglecting to buy a $3.25 train tickets. They end up with arrest records that could impede their chances of finding jobs or even of doing volunteer work.

For some, the costs are even greater: it’s worth remembering that Barry Raymond Stewart, a homeless schizophrenic who was stomped to death by a fellow Remand Centre inmate in 2011, had been locked up for five days for failing to clear his jaywalking, trespassing and public drunkenness tickets.

According to Alberta Justice, in 2014-15, about 2,000 people were incarcerated for such fines, for an average of 2.8 days each. Their incarceration cost taxpayers approximately $800,000. That doesn’t include the expense of the judges, prosecutors, court clerks and police who issue, execute and process warrants for these minor offences. Court clerks alone spend 9,000 hours per year handling warrants for such provincial and municipal infractions.

Meanwhile, the province has about 90,000 current outstanding warrants for such petty offences — of which 16 per cent are more than five years old. Police simply don’t have the resources to round up all the scofflaws. That’s not justice for anyone.