Clay County Sheriff’s Office launches new app

CLAY COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Clay County Sheriff Eddie Scott said he has been searching for a way the public could easily correspond with the department.

For years, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office has used a website and a Facebook page.

Now, that information and more are available on the new sheriff’s app.

Sheriff Eddie Scott says this gives citizens an easy way to access information right at their fingertips.

“It’s actually incorporating a lot of what was on the website, plus adding some more information on there,” Scott said. “Actually, our inmate roster is one of the big features. I always know when our website is down cause people are calling. They go and look every morning at our inmate roster to see, you know, who got locked up last night.”

Sheriff Scott said the app allows him to send push notifications out to citizens in real time, which is extremely important for emergency alerts.

“The website was a little bit slower. This right here is going to allow us to be able to push out information more quickly, efficiently, and keep the public informed of what’s going on,” Scott said.

He hopes the real-time information will help with transparency and connecting with the community.

“When something happens in our community, we want to be to get the information out there as quickly as we can in order to help save and protect lives,” Scott said. “The public can actually go in there and respond to us in an instant. So we’re always trying to get the public involved. We’re hoping this just makes it easier for the public to do.

Sheriff Scott believes the app will help inmates as well. There is a feature that allows users to put money on inmates’ books.

There is also a feature that allows the public to help the Sheriff’s Office directly by submitting tips about crimes.

“It’s really important for us to be able to correspond with the public, and we want to hear back from the public,” Scott said. “So we encourage you to go out and download these apps.”

The app is available for Apple and Android.

The Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Office also launched its new app.

Sheriff Scott says that as more agencies have the app, it helps agencies work together.