The Statewide Automated Victim Information and Notification (SAVIN) system, used to notify the victims of crimes in Indiana of the scheduled release of offenders, has incorrectly generated more than 300 incorrect notification calls and thousands of incorrect notification e-mails.

According to a statement released on Thursday by the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC), a technical problem is responsible for the 336 notification calls and approximately 11,000 notification e-mails. “These incorrect release notifications reported inmate releases, when in fact, the vast majority of the offenders remain in custody,” IDOC said. “No one was put in danger, but these incorrect notifications resulted in concern for those who believed, incorrectly, that offenders had been released.”

DOC said that the technical problem occurred earlier on Thursday when Appriss Inc., which developed the SAVIN system, was performing maintenance on it. “Appriss engineers noticed the problem when service representatives began receiving a large spike in follow-up calls from concerned registrants,” IDOC said. “Upon realizing the problem, the service for the IDOC was shut down until the problem could be corrected.”

“Our first and foremost concern is with those who received the erroneous notifications,” Appriss CEO Doug Cobb said. “We are working closely with IDOC officials to resolve the problem and have provided accurate information to the more than 11,000 recipients who received the messages in error.”

Persons who may have received an incorrect notification can verify the status of the offender in question by checking the IDOC website at www.in.gov/apps/indcorrection/ofs/ofs

Service representatives are also making contacts to the approximately 100 registrants who received accurate notifications on Thursday to confirm that the information which they received was correct.

“The IDOC is committed to providing accurate public safety information and we apologize for the errors made today,” said IDOC Commissioner Edwin Buss.

Posted 2/6/2009