Operational Coastal Cleanup

Operation Coastal Cleanup has wrapped and the results are in. The two day operation, carried out on Monday and Tuesday, was a joint law enforcement effort to ensure registration compliance of convicted sex offenders throughout Harrison County.

Two hundred and fifty sex offenders live in Harrison County. Earlier this week, law enforcement paid them all a visit in a two day joint effort called “Operational Coastal Cleanup.” It was headed up by the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department to check and see if all of the convicted sex offenders had complied with the state law and registered as sex offenders in the county. Some of them had not.  Captain Coley Judy said, “That’s why we do these compliance checks with the U.S Marshal Service once a year.”

During the two day sweep, authorities found that ten of 250 offenders had failed to register as sex offenders. Captain Coley Judy with the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department says it won’t be long before all those who broke the law are back behind bars. “The Harrison County investigators will check those ten and make sure they were in fact non-compliant. When that happens, we issue warrants for their arrests.”

If you live in Harrison County, you can do your own research and find out if any convicted sex offenders live in your neighborhood. Go to the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department website, click on the home page and scroll down to the bottom and click on the sex offender registry icon. “They can click on that and they can see the local sex offenders that are living in their area,” said Captain Judy.

Operation Coastal Cleanup wasn’t the first of its kind and it won’t be the last. Sheriff’s investigators say it’s an ongoing operation aimed to help keep residents informed and to keep tabs on those who have broken the law before. “Above all it gives the community a peace of mind as well as the people next to them and in their general vicinity.”