Frankfort - Five more Kentucky counties - Garrard, Jessamine, Pulaski, Lincoln and Rockcastle - have been added to eWarrants, the state's electronic warrant management system. This brings to 84 the number of Kentucky counties utilizing eWarrants. The Office of the Attorney General, along with the Administrative Office of the Courts, the Kentucky State Police, the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security and Open Portal Solutions, Inc., provided training and support for eWarrants.
The system facilitates the sharing of information among all law enforcement concerning active warrants in jurisdictions throughout Kentucky. It replaces the manual methods for processing warrant information with an electronic method for making warrants available via the Law Enforcement Information Network of Kentucky (LINK), the system administered by Kentucky State Police and used by law enforcement to transmit and retrieve information on active warrants.
Serving rates for warrants rise from as low as 10 percent under the old system to roughly 50 percent immediately after implementation of eWarrants, and as high as 80 percent in the long-term. More than 465,000 warrants/summons have been entered into the eWarrant system.
"From what we've observed, the new eWarrant system will significantly reduce the amount of time and paperwork in our office," Doug Fain, Jessamine County Circuit Clerk, said in a press release.
Kentucky's eWarrant system began as a pilot project in 2005 to address a backlog of nearly 300,000 un-served warrants in the state. A backlog in the service of warrants, or a misplaced or lost warrant, could allow a person charged with a violent crime to evade arrest and continue to victimize citizens.
