August 23rd, 2018 by WCBC Radio
Maryland is now the 17th state in the U.S. to join the OffenderWatch sex offender registry network through a statewide contract. Every Maryland sheriff’s office, registering police department, as well as the Maryland Dept. of Corrections and Department of Public Safety, will deploy the OffenderWatch technology to easily share records on sex offenders, communicate with agencies both inside as well as outside of the state, and improve work flow and better allocate resources for proactive offender management and better public safety. With 3,600 law enforcement agencies in 37 states currently adopting the technology, OffenderWatch is the nation’s leading sex offender registration, monitoring and community notification solution.
“Wicomico County has been an OffenderWatch client for several years. My agency saw the need very early to adopt a program that not only allowed our Sex Offender Registry Unit to communicate with our neighboring counties and police departments, but also can communicate in real time with agencies outside of Maryland when potentially dangerous offenders moved into Wicomico County. My citizens deserve the most accurate and timely notifications to protect their families. I am very happy that 6 million people will now have the ability to receive the same type of notifications across Maryland,” said Sheriff Mike Lewis of the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office.
With more than 800,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, and nearly 10,000 registered sex offenders in the state of Maryland alone, sheriffs will now be able to better manage registered sex offenders and communicate with other law enforcement agencies. Through the OffenderWatch partnership, online resources are available to educate and inform the public on ways to keep neighborhoods safe. One purpose of the sex offender monitoring and alerting program is to provide Maryland citizens with proactive alerts and real-time updates when an offender registers or moves within a specified radius of their address. The service is available at no cost to the public with confidential and unlimited address registrations—home, school, work, gym, day care, park, or any address of interest.
“For too long, law enforcement data has been siloed—with agencies not sharing critical, sometimes life-saving, information with one another. With OffenderWatch, we make sharing data and updating offender records seamless and easy, so that our law enforcement members can focus less on paperwork and more on keeping our communities safe,” said Mike Cormaci, president and co-founder of OffenderWatch.
To learn more about OffenderWatch, visit www.watchsystems.com.
