May 13, 2002

Do you need to talk with someone about an accident report? Do you want to get more information about the Crimestoppers program? Are you interested in talking to someone about a job? Thanks to the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office new non-emergency automated telephone system, you will be able to get directly to any of these people in a faster more convenient manner.

As of Monday, the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office has automated its non-emergency telephone system. When a person calls the Sheriff’s Office main telephone number - 770-781-2222 - he will get a list of options to select from which includes the the Detention Center, the Uniform Patrol Section, the Personnel Unit, the Crimestoppers Unit, the Public Information Officer, and the Records Unit. Each division, section and unit of the Sheriff’s Office is included in the listing. The system gives the caller prompts to get directly to the person the caller needs to talk with.

“If a person has an emergency, the person should still call 911,” said Sheriff Ted Paxton. “Emergency calls will continue to be our priority. One of the reasons for going to the automated system is to free up the dispatchers in our Communications Center to concentrate more on the emergency calls and dispatching the calls to our officers, the fire department and EMS.”

Prior to this system being implemented, all emergency calls and non-emergency calls were answered by the dispatchers in the Communications Center. The system was designed by DataVoice.