Law Enforcement in Richmond County now have access to the new North Carolina Warrant Repository (NCAWARE) program. This program has been in the works for the past 15 years and has now become available to law enforcement.

“All of North Carolina will be on the system by the end of the year,” said Kathy Gainey, clerk of superior court. The statewide system launched in 2008 in Johnston County and is being rolled out county by county.

The NCAWARE project is a criminal justice information network. It was proven that there was need for it in North Carolina from 1994 to 1995 by a Blue Ribbon Study Committee which was a result of the 1994 special crime session.

“This will be most effective when the officers are out on patrol,” Gainey said. “All of these people that have dead, dormant cases, they will be picked up instead of being in file drawers. I was so excited when I was in the meeting. If someone is stopped for a traffic ticket, the information that they may have a violent history, will be picked up and they can be handled with caution.”

The program will provide the following benefits: Real time statewide access to all law enforcement and court officials from any location with web access. This will reduce the risk to personal safety of the public law enforcement and court officials. It provides automatic searches for outstanding processes on any defendant or witness entered. A person’s records and processes will be converted from the previous magistrate system or ACIS for each county as they are implemented. The number of records that will be included on the database is estimated to exceed 1.5 million.

“Great program, its been in the planning phases for sometime,” said Police Chief Robert Voorhees, of the Rockingham Police Department. “Kathy Gainey was instrumental in working with me to get two computers installed at no charge to the taxpayers, so that we could have the training needed.”

The system is completely detailed with warrants, criminal summons, citations of all kinds and even their business information.

“With this being our first day, this is all new, but it will be good because the warrants will go out immediately,” Vikki Burns said. “From what I understand, the officer will get a (ding) to let him know that there is a new warrant.”

“This will help our investigators speed up the process of obtaining warrants. We are glad to be a part of it,” Voorhees said. “We expect all of our officers to be trained within the next two weeks.”

Hollie Nivens can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 19 or by e-mailing at hnivens@yourdailyjournal.com.