The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office is among at least 204 facilities listed as offline across 35 states, according to a Cops & Congress review of VINE’s public status listings
By Annie Dance | Lake Lure News | Cops & Congress | News & Commentary | Reporting from Rutherfordton, NC
The disappearance of mugshots from the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office public-facing app is part of a much larger technology problem.
As of Aug. 9, VINE’s public system listed at least 204 correctional or criminal justice facilities as offline across 35 states, according to a review of the facilities listed on the system.
The number is a minimum because VINE also listed Nevada and all of its affiliated facilities as offline, without providing a facility-by-facility count.
Rutherford County was among six North Carolina agencies listed as offline.
The North Carolina list also included Catawba, Chowan, Iredell, Pitt, and Randolph counties, according to the VINE status information reviewed by Cops & Congress.
The problem stretches well beyond the Southeast.
Arizona had 27 facilities listed offline, Florida had 21 and Indiana had 18. Louisiana had 12, Alabama had nine, while Illinois, New York and South Carolina each had seven.
The review found offline facilities in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Several other states were listed as having all facilities online.
The figures represent the facilities specifically identified in VINE’s public listings as offline as of the time of the review. They should not be interpreted as a definitive count of every agency experiencing a VINE-related problem nationwide.
What it means in Rutherford County
Sheriff Aaron Ellenburg confirmed to Cops & Congress that the VINE outage is preventing booking photographs from populating the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office app.
That means the underlying booking information has not necessarily disappeared.
Instead, the problem appears to involve the automated flow of information between local jail-management systems and the public-facing services that display it.
For a journalist or resident accustomed to checking the Sheriff’s Office app for a recent booking photo, the result is simple: the information that previously appeared may no longer be there.
The same technology pipeline can affect custody information and other jail-related data.
A nationwide technology issue
VINE, or Victim Information and Notification Everyday, is a national criminal justice information and notification system used by government agencies.
Its services are designed primarily to help crime victims obtain information about offender custody status and receive notifications.
But the public-facing nature of the system has made it useful beyond victim notifications. Journalists, researchers and members of the public also use publicly available information to track criminal cases and locate records.
When an agency goes offline, users are directed to contact the facility directly for information.
That creates an obvious problem for people who need written, searchable and accessible information, rather than a telephone conversation.
The outage also demonstrates how dependent public access has become on software vendors and the connections between government systems.
Similar problems have been reported elsewhere
The issue is not unique to Rutherford County.
The Wyandot County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio said that its jail roster had stopped updating after a software update that was not compatible with VINE. The agency said it was working with VINE and its vendors to resolve the problem.
That provides a real-world example of how a software update can disrupt the public’s ability to view information even when the underlying jail records remain intact.
Not evidence of records being hidden
An agency appearing as offline on VINE does not, by itself, establish that records have been deleted, lost or intentionally withheld.
In Rutherford County, public records remain available through other avenues, including written public records requests. North Carolina court information is also available through the state’s Judicial Branch eCourts system.
The immediate problem is a technology connection. The broader issue is what happens to public access when that connection fails.
The bigger public records question
Rutherford County’s VINE problem comes as the county continues its transition to new law enforcement technology.
Commissioners approved a Southern Software contract on Aug. 4, 2025, covering systems used by Emergency Communications and the Sheriff’s Office, including computer-aided dispatch, records management and jail management functions.
Those systems form part of the larger information pipeline through which law enforcement records can ultimately reach the public.
It’s not immediately clear when Southern Software tools will be available for public use in Rutherford County. The website does not have it publicly listed as of Aug. 9, 2026.
This story has been updated.
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