Elkhart County Sheriff’s Department is promoting OffenderWatch, the nation’s leading registered sex offender management and community notification tool.

OffenderWatch is updated regularly and consistently and is a great tool to track offenders in specified areas. There is a free email alert system that you may confidentially register with and it will send an alert if an offender moves within the specified radius of any address that you enter.

The ECSD currently has over 1,000 people registered to receive email alerts for this service. In a recent one-week period, 398 emails had been sent to Elkhart County residents and 8,205 emails were sent statewide. In Indiana, there are over 51,000 people registered to receive the alerts.

For additional information, click on the sex offender alert tab on the ECSD’s website.

The ECSD is also offering VineLink. VineLink is a National Victim Notification Network that allows victims of crimes to be notified in a timely manner about the custody status of offenders. Register online or call 1-866-959-VINE. It is a free service offered by the Indiana Sheriff’s Association and provides updates via phone or email 24 hours a day.