La Plata, MD— The Charles County Sheriff’s Office is utilizing a new program that allows citizens to better see where registered sex offenders live. The CCSO will be part of a nationwide network of over 5,000 law enforcement agencies which use the OffenderWatch program.
The new service is a citizen-friendly, easy-to-use website that enables citizens to search for sex offenders by entering any address and viewing a map listing all offenders within a user-defined radius (of .25 miles out to 2 miles) of the address. The information is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and is updated in real time by the CCSO.
As part of this new, innovative service, citizens can register an address to be continuously monitored by the Sheriff’s Office, which in turn will send an e-mail alert if an offender should register at an address within the specified radius. Citizens may register as many addresses as they like, at no cost and confidentially. In addition, OffenderWatch has a unique tool allowing citizens to send a tip directly to the Sheriff’s Office about any unusual activity involving a known registered sex offender.
Sheriff Troy D. Berry said OffenderWatch will also help law enforcement agencies better manage the sex offender registry. “The new system allows detectives to maintain all information about an offender in one database, whereas before, there were multiple databases to manage,” Sheriff Berry said. Offender Watch could also be a useful tool should a child go missing – the program has the capabilities to search information about offenders based on their physical description or the cars they drive. In addition, OffenderWatch allows data-sharing between law enforcement agencies.
