MARIPOSA COUNTY – The Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office has launched a new sex offender registration and public notification website called OffenderWatch®. The Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office will now be part of a nationwide network of over 5,000 law enforcement agencies.
The new service is a citizen-friendly, easy to use website that enables citizens to search for potentially dangerous sex offenders and predators, which may be in close proximity to their homes, places of work, schools, churches and day care centers.
The information is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and is updated in real time by the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office 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 (from .25 miles out to 2 miles) of that address.
Citizens can then register the address to be continuously monitored by the Sheriff’s Office, who will send them an email alerting them if an offender or predator should register an address within the specified radius of their chosen address.
Citizens may confidentially register as many addresses as they like, at no cost to them.
“Citizens have a right to know who may be living near them and could potentially pose a threat to their families,” says Sheriff Binnewies. “The California sheriffs and police departments using OffenderWatch® have the most up to date information on all offenders registered in the state and I am happy to be able to provide that information to them.”
The Sheriff 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/predator move within proximity to them, and to provide the highest level of security and safety to all Mariposa citizens.
The Office of the Attorney General Megan’s Law website is still available for citizens to utilize when searching for sex offenders in all of Mariposa County.
To register for the new OffenderWatch® program, please visit the website at www.mariposacounty.org/sheriff
