By By BETTY MITCHELL GRAY
Staff writer
Law-enforcement officers in Beaufort County have a new tool to help them fight crime — an Internet-based system used to issue and track warrants for all wanted people in the state.
The system, North Carolina Automated Warrant Repository, was first used in the county last week, said Chief Deputy Harry Meredith with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
“This is one of the biggest changes we have had in law enforcement in decades,” Meredith said in an interview Wednesday.
NCAWARE, along with new laptop computers that will be used in every patrol car used by the sheriff’s office, will streamline communications within the department and with other law-enforcement agencies and court officers not only in Beaufort County but statewide, Meredith said.
NCAWARE maintains detailed information about criminal processes such as warrants, magistrate orders, citations that lead to an arrest, criminal summons, orders for arrest, release orders and appearance bonds. It also tracks information and details for all people and businesses involved in such processes.
“There will be no need to call around to each agency that may have a warrant on a person or to wait with a suspect until someone can physically put their hands on a paper warrant before an arrest,” Meredith said. “The system also makes deputies and office staff more efficient by eliminating the need to manually track warrants, and it will improve safety for deputies and the citizens of Beaufort County by allowing deputies to check people they have contact with for active warrants within seconds.”
When combined with laptop computers in the cars of patrol deputies, the records in NCAWARE will let deputies streamline arrests and improve safety for the deputies and county residents, Meredith said.
With NCAWARE, during a routine traffic stop, a Beaufort County deputy or other law-enforcement officer has the information needed to apprehend someone who may be wanted for other, more serious offenses.
And, before that deputy approaches an suspected offender, he or she can search NCAWARE from computers in their vehicles to determine if that person has any previous offenses or outstanding warrants for arrest around the state. This will enable the officer to determine whether the person is safe to approach or if other officers should be called to the scene.
Without the mobile access to the records in NCAWARE, deputies would have to call central communications to obtain the needed information or they would have to go to the sheriff’s office with an offender to electronically enter the information every time they make arrests, Meredith said.
The laptop computers not only let deputies create warrants in the field, they also give deputies access to the department’s internal records system and instant access to information such as the number and type of contacts the sheriff’s office has had with an individual.
Before the implementation of the new system, deputies in the field would have to contact someone at the sheriff’s office by telephone or radio and have that individual check the internal system.
Investigator Wesley Waters with the sheriff’s office has used the system to enter warrants for arrest. He is impressed with its effectiveness and ease of use.
“It is great for officers in the counties in the area and across the state,” he said. “At the touch of a finger, we have access to the information we need.”
Beaufort County is the 38th county in North Carolina to activate the system. It is one of 14 counties scheduled to join the system from January through February. Other new users of the system in the region include Hyde, Tyrrell and Washington counties. Pitt County is scheduled to implement the system in March.
NCAWARE was developed and is maintained by the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts, which estimated that, at the beginning of the project, there were some 750,000 unserved processes statewide, including more than 350,000 outstanding orders for arrest and more than 350,000 outstanding criminal summons and warrants.
The system was unveiled Monday night to the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners, whose members called it a needed step in fighting crime in the county.
“It’s an extremely good system,” said Jerry Langley, board chairman.
A county-by-county implementation began in June 2008, starting in Johnston County. The system is being rolled out county-by-county throughout the state through April, when it is scheduled to be implemented in Forsyth, Stokes, Vance and Warren counties.
As each county implements NCAWARE, information about unserved criminal summons, warrants and orders for arrest from 2000 until the present will be converted. Once NCAWARE is in use in all 100 counties, the system will have some 35,000 users, including law-enforcement officers, and contain more than 5 million records and more than 400,000 images such as photographs of defendants, according the N.C. Office of the Courts.