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.”…