Ohio to launch statewide alert system for prison escapes

Last fall, Ohio state Rep. Bill Roemer was on the campaign trail, going door to door in the Akron area, when his campaign manager notified him that an escaped convict had been spotted nearby. The location of the convict, who had escaped from Summit County Jail, was made known through Nixle, a service that provides alerts on weather, traffic and missing persons.

That incident, as well as a local news investigation that uncovered that the Summit County Sheriff’s Office had failed to notify local law enforcement and the public about several escaped inmates last year, prompted Roemer to introduce a bill. The legislation, which Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law this month, creates the Escaped Convict Alert Program, intended to enhance public safety by promptly notifying the public in areas surrounding the given jail, workhouse or correctional institution.

“Literally, within a couple days, I saw a couple stories about felons that had escaped from the Summit County Jail. And the sheriff had told people don’t notify anybody. Why? Because she thought it would reflect badly on her,” Roemer said in an interview. “And I said, well, if a private service can do it, then we ought to have something from a state perspective.”

The bill orders the creation of a state-level system that issues alerts when felons escape detention, using existing emergency alert systems and geolocation technology, similar to the Amber Alert or Silver Alert systems used to notify the public of child abductions or lost senior citizens. The syste, will exclude non-felons and those in community-based correction facilities.

The Arkansas State Detention Facility operates a similar alert system that provides real-time information to the public about inmate escapes from state detention facilities. The Arkansas system issues alerts via phone, text and email to those who opt in. Each alert includes a name, description and photograph of the escaped inmate.

In Ohio, local law enforcement would activate the alert system once informed of an escape, notifying the public within a specific radius. Roemer said this will help prevent “undue panic” in unaffected areas.

“It will be very specific and use the same geolocation [technology] as Amber alerts,” Roemer said. “We want to make sure that if you’re in Cincinnati, you don’t get an alert that somebody escaped from the Trumbull County Jail.”

The new legislation also allows for local or regional adaptations of the alert system and grants liability protections to broadcasters that participate in good faith, regardless of whether an alert is ultimately sent out. It does not permit use of the federal Emergency Alert System.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission tracks federal cases (there were 287 offenses last year), but not the much larger state correctional system. And since states don’t use a uniform definition of “escape” that distinguishes between serious prison breaks, walk-offs from work-release or halfway houses, supervised leave and AWOL inmates, data is inconsistent.

“It makes sure that the public will stay safe, because we want people in the affected area to know, just like I didn’t know,” Roemer said.