Seems this organization has provided law enforcement precautions for minimizing contact with registrants in the lobby. Not that they care about the registrant!

https://offenderwatch.com/covid-19/

We appreciate the trust you place in OffenderWatch and our law enforcement solutions.

OffenderWatch is focused on service continuity and prepares for any contingency, including potential effects of an outbreak such as COVID-19.  There is currently no foreseen impact to OffenderWatch services, but we wanted to provide some detail regarding our preparedness should the situation change.

We are also providing  guidance regarding offender registration precautions and actions you can take.

In addition, we are offering OffenderWatch Express Check-In at a reduced rate so that agencies can minimize contact time with offenders by allowing them to update information online. Please contact us for more information.

OffenderWatch Service Continuity 

Here is an outline of our key preparedness activities to ensure continued service delivery during this event. The three areas of focus during any situation that challenges normal operations are:

• Impact to systems – does the event have a potential impact on our systems used to deliver and support OffenderWatch?
• Impact to location – are the locations from which we deliver and support OffenderWatch effected and what is our response?
• Impact to people – are we prepared should there be impact to the individuals responsible for delivering service to our customers?

While the following provides the high-level efforts in each of these areas, there are significantly more activities that relate to our business continuity efforts for OffenderWatch.

Impact to systems – First and foremost there are no known impacts to OffenderWatch services.  Heightened awareness is in place for the following areas:

• Service scale and operations – One of the benefits of our cloud service is the ability to scale dynamically, including utilization of our significant supply chain, reallocation of resources between services, and redistribution of load.
• Supporting systems – As a cloud service, OffenderWatch operations at Nlets is remotely managed and administered.  We see no effect to our ability to manage the systems used to support OffenderWatch and have confirmed adequate capacity for staff to work remotely at scale.
• External systems – We are monitoring the cloud service and internet provider industry but there are no issues identified other than travel to certain countries.

Impact to location –  Our services are designed for remote administration.  We wanted to provide specific details around support of the service should OffenderWatch engineers be constrained to work from home.

• OffenderWatch engineering resources can securely administer the service without direct access to the corporate location or Nlets hosting facilities.
• OffenderWatch maintains multiple geographic locations with individuals who can maintain the service.

People  – We have the capability of ensuring continued operations with multiple subject matter experts in each discipline, with geographic diversity being a consideration.

• Employees responsible for managing the service all have access to needed resources to work from home or the office.
• Our on-call rotation allows for sustained support should issues arise and ensures that resources are available should individuals fall ill.

While OffenderWatch puts the safety and well-being of its employees at the forefront, our “defense-in-depth” approach is expected to allow for uninterrupted service operation should the virus spread significantly. We will make updates should the situation change.

Precautions for Registering Agencies

Your agency may adopt some of the practices described above. We also offer these ideas for minimizing contact with registrants in your lobby.

• Reschedule registrations where legally possible.
• Post a sign asking registrants with symptoms to call in to reschedule.
• Consider using OffenderWatch Express Check-In to allow users to update their record online and come in to sign the completed forms.
• Provide a sanitation station in your lobby with hand sanitizer.
• Provide tissue and a trash can in the lobby.
• Provide pens for registrants to use. Keep a pen separate for your own use.
• If you do not have a glass partition between you and the registrant, position the registrants chair not directly facing you.
• At least twice a day, wipe down the counters, chair arms, fingerprint devices, OffenderWatch Express Check-In kiosks and pens of the registration area.
• Frequently, wipe down your mouse, keyboard, phone, pen, and counter with sanitizing wipes or spray.

What You Can Do

We encourage you to become familiar with the World Health Organization’s suggested standard safety precautions taken for travel or during the normal cold and flu season, which include: 

• Washing your hands for 20 seconds and using alcohol-based hand sanitizer. When coughing and sneezing, cover your mouth and nose with a flexed elbow or tissue – discard the tissue immediately into a closed bin.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands.

We recommend a “No Handshake” policy and promote bumping elbows or fist bumps instead.

Thank you for your continued trust in OffenderWatch.