GREEN BAY - You're probably used to seeing highway billboards advertising products. Now one Brown County billboard is advertising for your help in catching criminals.

But not everyone who sees the billboards thinks some of the offenders should be broadcast.

One person is wanted for battery. Another for contempt of court. And one man is wanted for speeding.

“Speeding tickets I don't think is deserved of public scrutiny,” said Cliff Hammond of Greenleaf. “Anybody else on a felony, yeah, I got no problem with that.”

“It doesn't seem like you have to go that far to try and find someone who has an unpaid speeding ticket,” said Jacob Anderson of Ashwaubenon.

But Brown County Sheriff's Lt. Keith Deneys said crime is crime.

“I don't really think that's going above and beyond. These individuals are wanted, they're wanted by the court system,” said Deneys.

The sheriff's department is using this billboard for the first time to broadcast people with outstanding arrest warrants, which include anything from battery to drunken driving, even littering.

“We ask that if people know of see these people to call the number that's up on the billboard and we will go about apprehending them,” said Deneys.

Recently the sheriff's department and court offered a warrant amnesty program. It gave those with non-criminal warrants a chance to pay their fees or make other arrangements to clear their name. Only 10 people with a total of 13 warrants took advantage of the program. That's out of more than 3,500 arrest warrants in Brown County.

“We obviously don't have the manpower to go out and hunt down that many individuals,” said Deneys.

So it turned to the billboards in hopes people would either call in the whereabouts of the offenders or the offenders would turn themselves in. While Deneys said he thinks the billboard will help catch some of these people, he's not relying on it to do all the work.

“I don't anticipate catching all the individuals just because of this program. Eventually these individuals will be apprehended,” he said.

While not everyone agrees with some of the offenses chosen for broadcast, some said the idea behind the billboards is a good one.

“The worse stuff, yeah I can see that would work. Trying to get their names out for murder, stuff like that,” said Anderson.

“If I saw somebody I recognized I'd probably call,” said Green Bay resident Kasey Mather.

And that's exactly what the sheriff's department is waiting for.

The billboard will broadcast 10 pictures of wanted people every day for the next two weeks. Jones Sign Company and a $1,300 grant from Brown County's Crime Prevention Foundation are funding the ads.

Courtesy WLUK