A protective order is used to protect individuals from certain types of violence, including family violence or stalking. Violence can include physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and intimidation, verbal abuse, control, isolation, and economic abuse. The protective order is an official court document issued by the judge and requires a certain named individual to stay a certain distance away from the person requesting the order for a certain period of time.

It is not only important for these orders to be issued in order to ensure safety but also to have a comprehensive database for these orders. The Georgia Protective Order Registry is an online service that stores all protective orders issued by the Superior Courts of Georgia. The Registry became effective on July 1, 2002 as part of the Georgia Crime Information Center (GCIC).

As the statute states, the Georgia Protective Order Registry was “created to serve as a state-wide, centralized data base for the collection of protective orders.  The registry is intended to enhance victim safety by providing law enforcement officers, prosecuting attorneys, and the courts access to protective orders…access to the registry is intended to aid law enforcement officers, prosecuting attorneys, and the courts in the enforcement of protective orders and the protection of victims.”

Through this registry, Georgia’s law enforcement officers, probation officers, prosecuting attorneys, and judges can access protective orders issued by the courts of Georgia and foreign courts 24 hours of the day and seven days a week. This provides quick and easy access for certain types of Georgia employees to find the protective orders that they are searching for.

Orders may be searched by the civil action file number, county, or respondent name. Next, information that can be viewed on the order includes:

  • The civil action file number;
  • Clerk’s and sheriff’s originating identification number;
  • County the order was issued in;
  • Protective order conditions;
  • Effective, expiration, and service dates;
  • Respondent and petitioner information

You are able to either simply view this information or print it directly off of the page.

The registry is maintained by the Georgia Crime Information Center. Clerks of Superior Courts are responsible for indexing the required date for orders filed in their courts, electronically scanning the orders, and attaching the images of the orders to the indexed data. After this the clerks transmit the indexed data and the order images to the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority. The authority then verifies and forwards the transmissions to the GCIC computer systems. The orders and modifications are there to search and view. Finally, the registry is linked to the National Crime Information Center Network. This allows protective orders or modifications entered in the registry to be automatically transmitted to the network.

If you need help with a protective order, please contact the attorneys at Vayman & Teitelbaum.  Our attorneys can assist in answering any additional questions you have concerning protective orders and the Georgia Protective Order Registry.