About eWarrants
How It Works
We're making the entry of warrants and protection orders into national databases as easy as possible.
Ohio's uniform, statewide electronic warrant and protection order system improves the thoroughness, accuracy, and timeliness of submissions to the Law Enforcement Automated Data System (LEADS) and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
ENSURING Public Safety
- eWarrants enhances law enforcement situational awareness.
- eWarrants helps reduce warrant backlog.
- eWarrants facilitates the entry of all warrants and protection orders into the National Crime Information Center via LEADS by automating the process and eliminating duplicate entries.
PROTECTING Victims
- eWarrants allows stakeholders to track open warrants and protection orders.
BENEFITS of eWarrants
- EASY – eWarrants is intuitive, responsive, web-based, and mobile-friendly.
- FREE – eWarrants is provided at no cost to all 88 Ohio counties, law enforcement, courts, clerks, and victims.
- REAL-TIME ACCESS – eWarrants provides the up-to-date status of warrants and protection orders. This can help reduce instances of false arrest due to stale data.
eWarrants Demonstration Video
History
In response to the number of outstanding warrants and growing backlog of unserved warrants in Ohio, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine created the Ohio Governor's Warrant Task Force in February 2019. The Warrant Task Force studied how Ohio's 1,361 entities with access to the Ohio Law Enforcement Automated Data System (LEADS) utilize it. Information from LEADS ultimately feeds data into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) system, which is the FBI's national electronic repository for crime data.
The Warrant Task Force determined that Ohio lacks a uniform statewide warrant request and tracking system. The scope of the problem is illustrated by the fact that the Warrant Task Force was not able to ascertain the number of open warrants in Ohio, nor the number of open warrants for serious or violent offenses. To improve the existing warrant processes, the Warrant Task Force recommended the development of a statewide electronic warrant system to effectively track the status of warrants from creation to service.
The eWarrants system improves the thoroughness, accuracy and timeliness of warrant and protection order submissions to LEADS for officer safety, public safety and firearm transfer decisions, while complying with state and federal security policy standards and operational requirements.
In partnership with the Ohio Department of Public Safety and the Ohio Department of Administrative Services, InnovateOhio was charged with developing and implementing a free, centralized, intuitive, responsive, quick, web-based, mobile friendly system for entering protections orders and warrants for law enforcement, courts, and clerks across all 88 counties. Funded by InnovateOhio, this system is available for law enforcement, advocates, judges, and clerks to support eWarrants and protection orders. The eWarrants system fulfills Governor DeWine's vision for a statewide electronic warrants system that is "free, easy, and mandatory."