Lincoln Police Department announces new sex offender notification website

[March 14, 2012]  On Monday, Chief Ken Greenslate and the Lincoln Police Department announced the launch of a new sex offender registration and public notification website called OffenderWatch. This citizen-friendly, easy-to-use website enables citizens to search for potentially dangerous sex offenders and predators who may be in close proximity to their homes, places of work, schools, churches and day care centers.

Detective Sgt. Paul Adams initiated, implemented and will administrate the new service that will enable the citizens of Lincoln to access the website. Lincoln will now be part of a nationwide network of over 5,000 law enforcement agencies, which includes over half of Illinois’ law enforcement agencies.

The information is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and is updated in real time by the Lincoln Police Department as offender information changes and is reported.

As part of this new, innovative service, citizens may enter any address of interest to them and see a map and listing of all offenders within a user-defined radius of that address (from one-fourth mile out to two miles). Citizens can then register the address to be continuously monitored by the website, which will send them an email alerting them if an offender or predator should register an address within their specified radius of their address. Citizens may confidentially register as many addresses as they like, at no cost to them.

The department has also made available additional Web-based resources designed to educate and inform the public on ways to keep their families safe.

The purpose of the program is to lessen the anxiety of citizens by proactively alerting them should an offender or predator move within proximity to them, and to provide the highest level of security and safety to all Lincoln citizens.

The program also enables police to verify that offender addresses do not violate any "safety buffers" that may be implemented around protected institutions in the city, such as schools, day cares and parks, and helps law enforcement schedule compliance checks for verifying information provided by offenders.

Citizens can access the OffenderWatch registry at the Lincoln Police Department sex offender search page through a link on the department website,  http://www.lincolnpolice.us/.

[Text from file received from the Lincoln Police Department]