Madison County Sheriff's Department announces Digiticket E-Citation program

EDWARDSVILLE - The Madison County Circuit Clerk’s office together with the Sheriff’s office are announcing the launch of the Digiticket E-Citation program in Madison County. 

There will be a live demonstration of the system and a brief press conference following the demo, at 2:30 p.m. today, March 24, in the front parking lot of the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, 405 Randle St., Edwardsville.

Mark Von Nida, Madison County Circuit Clerk, together with Sheriff John Lakin announce the launch of the Digiticket E-Citation program in Madison County that started on Friday, March 18, 2016. The Digiticket solution allows police officers to scan driver licenses, capture vehicle information and issue electronic citations. The program will also notify officers of warrants and stolen vehicles.

The driving force behind the purchase of this program was a time savings for both the officer and the citizen being issued the citation. The average traffic stop using the traditional method of the officer hand writing a citation takes somewhere near 15 minutes. Using the e-citation program will reduce the amount of time required to issue a citation to 5 minutes or less Von Nida said. The Digiticket solution will also provide time and cost saving measures in the Circuit Clerk’s office by automatically uploading the citation into the clerk’s case management system.

From the perspective of the Sheriff’s office, officer and driver safety is the number one advantage the E-Citation program offers. Sheriff Lakin said, “The less amount of time an officer has to stay out on the side of a busy road issuing a citation, the safer the officer will be. Traffic stops can be extremely dangerous and this solution will improve the standards for safety both for the officer and the driver”. In addition to the safety improvements, the data will also be automatically uploaded into the Sheriff’s Office records management system. This will eliminate the need for Sheriff’s Office personnel to manually enter the citation data.

In 2011, pursuant to Illinois State Statute, the Circuit Clerk’s office began collecting a $5.00 e-citation fee on all traffic tickets that required a court appearance. $3.00 of the $5.00 fee collected is deposited into a restricted fund for use by the Circuit Clerk’s office for the purchase, implementation and maintenance of the e-citation program. The remaining $2.00 is disbursed to the issuing agency for the same purpose.

The $49,483.00 purchase was approved by the Madison County board in July of 2015. Clerk Von Nida said the purchase included software, training, implementation and 15 printers for sheriff deputies’ vehicles.

The County IT department along with the Sheriff’s office and the Circuit Clerk’s office spent numerous hours in preparation for the start of this program. “I would like to thank the Circuit Clerk’s office and the County’s IT department personnel that have worked with us to successfully implement this program,” Sheriff Lakin said.

The Sheriff’s office is the first agency to use the system in Madison County. The Granite City Police Department will be next to join the Digiticket program. “The goal is to have all Madison County police agencies using the e-citation program by the end of next year.” Von Nida said.

For further information, contact Mark Von Nida at 618-296-4476

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