News Archive

Maryland Becomes 17th State to Join National OffenderWatch Sex Offender Network

Maryland Sheriffs, Dept. of Corrections to Share Data, Easily Update Sex Offender Records Through New Technology

COVINGTON, La. (Aug. 24, 2018)—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.The public can access the free OffenderWatch sex offender registry and sign up for e-notifications at the following link:• http://sheriffalerts.com/counties.php?state=MD“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.

OffenderWatch, the Largest Sex Offender Registry Network in the U.S., Awarded Contract with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Louisiana-based company achieves international growth through collaboration

COVINGTON, La. (May 4, 2018) – OffenderWatch, the leading public safety sex offender registry network in the United States, is pleased to announce that it will be working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to modernize the Canadian National Sex Offender Registry. This marks the first time that OffenderWatch, headquartered in Covington, La., has worked with a law enforcement agency outside of the U.S.OffenderWatch was awarded the contract to modernize the RCMP’s National Sex Offender Registry, following a Government of Canada procurement process. The contract between the RCMP and OffenderWatch is focused on making technical enhancements to the RCMP’s existing national database, and as such, no protected information will leave RCMP premises.“ OffenderWatch has specialized in the sex offender registry space servicing local, state and federal law enforcement partners for nearly 20 years,” said Mike Cormaci, president and co-founder of OffenderWatch. “The flexibility and innovation of our platform allows for comprehensive implementation of the entire country of Canada with features and adaptability not realized before.” There are numerous benefits to collaborating on a single sex offender record across any jurisdiction and Canada is no exception. With the OffenderWatch technological backbone supporting the new Canadian system, public safety agencies across Canada can configure certain features to bring efficiency in records management and investigations. OffenderWatch currently works with more than 3,500 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in 36 states in the United States—with statewide implementation in 16 of those states. The OffenderWatch network accounts for more than 60 percent of sex offenders in the U.S. New programs and services are now expanding that population to close to 80 percent domestically. Working with the RCMP, OffenderWatch will build and deploy a national solution that will be unmatched by any other national program, as many of the features are collaboratively designed by the RCMP and OffenderWatch over and above what is currently available in the core system. The purpose of the sex offender monitoring and alerting program is to bring efficiency realized in the United States to law enforcement agencies. “Our capabilities for geocoding, radial-based searches and hosting structure allow for large concurrent access and improve public safety,” Cormaci said. Through this collaboration, in addition to public safety features for federal, provincial and local law enforcement across Canada, the solution will achieve several goals for the RCMP, including:

• Improve the quality of registered sex offender data by enforcing mandatory data fields and increasing data validation
• Increase compliance with current legislation
• Advance work processes by increasing efficiency of workflows and reducing manual processes and paper files

For more information about OffenderWatch, please visit www.WatchSystems.com. About OffenderWatch - There are more than 800,000 registered sex offenders in the United States. Most states have a different system for tracking these offenders, making it difficult for agencies to keep records when the offenders cross state lines. The OffenderWatch Network is the largest sex offender registry system in the U.S., working with more than 3,500 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in 36 states. Founded in 2000 in Covington, La. under the Watch Systems company, OffenderWatch has expanded to include data on registered sex offenders from sheriffs’ offices, police departments, Attorney Generals’ offices, U.S. Marshal judicial districts, U.S. attorneys, federal and state probation and parole agents, department of corrections, Indian tribes, and more. The network delivers greater efficiency with technology, policy and procedure regarding sex offender monitoring and community notification. OffenderWatch partnered with Canada in spring 2018 to enhance the Canadian National Sex Offender Registry. Learn more at OffenderWatch.com.

OffenderWatch president Mike Cormaci authored an article in the May/June 2018 issue of Sheriff & Deputy magazine about OffenderWatch FOCUS. Learn how OffenderWatch uses big data to help better manage the worst sex offenders. Click the image or link below to read the full article.