Sheriff's office getting new system

By Adam Koob (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Friday, July 17, 2009

NATCHEZ — By September, computer technicians will be rewiring and updating the computer system at the Adams County Sheriff’s Office — and that new system will usher in a new way of doing business.

“This is going to change everything,” Adams County Sheriff Angie Brown said. “It’s going to be great for us.”

Brown said the current system, which manages warrants, booking records and virtually everything else in the jail, is approximately 25 years old and is dire need of being replaced.

Adams County Jail Administrator Maj. Charles Harrigill said the current system should have been replace five years ago.

And it was approximately two years ago when the ACSO started to upgrade the system.

“But that turned into a nightmare,” Harrigill said. “(The software company) could never get the program to work correctly.”

Brown said when technicians attempted to install the system two years ago, software was not able to link all the jail’s programs together.

“It just wasn’t working. The old system was so old, it couldn’t all be tied together,” Brown said. “This is going to be different.”

The company that installed the system two years ago has given the sheriff’s office a $75,000 credit for the installation of a new system.

But even with that credit, the new system is still costly.

On July 7, the Adams County Board of Supervisors passed a motion that will allow the county to borrow $125,000 for the new software.

Additionally, the sheriff’s office has received another $100,000 in donated software, in memory of former Sheriff Ronny Brown.

Harrigill said once bids are received for the server needed to run the software; installation should take approximately two weeks.

“We’re all looking forward to it,” he said.

Brown said once the new system is up and running, virtually every aspect of jail operations will change.

“So much is going to change, it’s hard to list it all,” Brown said.

Once installed, the new system will link the ACSO and the Adams County Courthouse and will allow the two entities to share records.

Brown said once that link is completed, the courthouse records will be accessible even during power outages since the jail can be run on generators.

“If there’s some kind of disaster and there’s no power at the courthouse and it falls on a payday (for county employees) they can still get paid,” she said.

Harrigill said the new system will also give deputies and officers at the Natchez Police Department the ability to view each other’s crime records.

And that has more than just the ACSO excited.

Natchez Police Sgt. Craig Godbold said he believes once the departments have the ability to share information, they can work together more effectively.

“Right now we basically have to call each other to share information,” Godbold said. “When we can just look at the records we can know what they’re working on and they can know what we’re working on. It’s going to be a big help.”