Vicksburg residents with overdue fines will soon have the chance to pay them off without facing additional penalties related to contempt of court charges.

The Vicksburg Municipal Court’s annual amnesty period runs from Feb. 1 through April 9.

During the 2017 amnesty period, Judge Toni Terrett said, 181 people took advantage to pay back fines totaling $85,133.35.

In 2015, the amnesty period netted the city $64,412.85 in back fines, about $2,656 more than collected in 2014, when the Vicksburg Municipal Court collected $61,756.41 in back fines from people who took advantage of the amnesty period.

Court records say the city is owed almost $4 million in past due fines for violations like misdemeanor crimes and traffic violations.

Instead of adding harm to those with fines by having them arrested on a warrant for contempt of court and forced to post a bond, the city is working to allow people to pay off fines with no questions asked.

Unpaid fines have become such a big issue that the Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved a resolution to support a bill that is being backed by the Mississippi Municipal League to place a lien on state income tax refunds to collect past due fines.

Recently, changes have been made at the state level to help those with past due fines. At the beginning of the year, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety stopped suspending people’s driver’s licenses for unpaid fines. There was also a court rules change enacted in July that requires a judge to determine whether a person can afford to pay a fine before jailing anyone for nonpayment.

These changes have not helped the cities remove the large dollar amounts of unpaid fines from their books though.

Hopefully people will take the city up on its offer to pay their fines with no questions asked during the upcoming amnesty period.