This September, the Bartow County Sheriff’s Office participated in Operation Watchful Eye III, which is the statewide residence check of all registered sex offenders in the State of Georgia. The countywide operation was conducted from September 14th-19th and also on the 21st.
The goal was to verify the compliance of the residence requirement for each of the 216 sex offenders living in Bartow County during that time frame. The BCSO was successful in validating 214 of the 216 offenders. Two arrest warrants were issued for the two that were not verified with a residence for Violation of Sex Offender Registry. The names of those two unverified offenders are being withheld due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.
Thanks to an initiative involving Georgia’s sheriffs, 38 sex offenders were arrested across the state from September 13th-21st for violations of state registration laws. The Office of Sheriff is mandated by law to register sex offenders and to keep the public informed of where registered sex offenders reside, work, and attend school.
The purpose of this statewide effort is to create awareness that sheriffs’ offices work collectively, network, and actively engage their office by participating in statewide verification checks and other non-compliant matters, in order to make our state safer. Preliminary reporting by 65 sheriff’s offices reveals a total of 10,601 registered sex offenders, 214 predators, and 301 homeless sex offenders currently living in their counties.
For more information on the whereabouts of registered sex offenders in your community, the website is bartow.org/sex-offender-search and the phone number is 770-382-5050 extension 6002.