A new interactive database has made 44,000 Cook County warrants public and searchable, Sheriff Thomas J. Dart announced Friday.
Visitors to the site can search by last name or last known location of the fugitive, and can submit anonymous information about the suspects.
"We're incredibly excited about this on many levels," Dart said Friday, "starting with the fact that we'll be arresting more people with warrants, [and] we're going to be cleaning up the system by getting warrants out of [it]."
Dart said the database gives citizens the power to provide tips, though he warned people not to "play police." Anyone with information should call the proper authorities, Dart said.
The new database is searchable by fugitive and child support warrants. Nearly 44,000 people with criminal court warrants are listed as fugitives, while almost 1,000 wanted parents are listed for failure to comply with child financial support.
Pictures of both the fugitive and child support suspects with a prior criminal record will eventually be available on the database, Dart said.
The exact, last-known locations of 26,000 fugitives have been mapped. The sheriff's office said it will continue to map these locations at a rate of almost 3,000 warrants per month.
