eWarrants

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

Warrants are created in Alameda County for the purpose of searches and arrests. The process involves a police officer with cause to search a location or person or to arrest an individual, creating a request and having it approved by a judge. The need for a warrant can come up at any time of the day or week and in almost all cases, time is of the essence and warrants need to be served immediately. The prior process was for officers to travel to the on-duty judge’s house and wait for the judge to review and approve the warrant. Upon approval, the officer had to travel back to serve the warrant. It was not uncommon for the turnaround time to initiate and serve a warrant to involve several hours. To address the deficiencies of the manual process, an electronic process was created for officers to be able to create warrants and electronically submit them to judges for their online review and approval. The electronic process has reduced the turnaround time from hours to a few minutes. This has been instrumental in serving specific warrants when time is of the essence.