Shore Sheriff Departments Promise Greater Collaboration [AUDIO]

Criminal activity does not have county borders and neither should law enforcement intelligence. That's the message from the sheriff's departments in Ocean and Monmouth Counties delivered during the January 8th Townsquare Tonight.

Ocean County Sheriff Mike Mastronardy and Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden will be championing the need for a single database to share information across county borders.

Mastronardy said the intelligence could help protect patrolmen on the streets and even prevent some crimes.

"We then would be able to run a name, a plate and a person if they were involved in anything in Monmouth or Ocean County than we would be more successful in prosecutions and apprehensions," Mastronardy explained.

Golden said Monmouth County already has a new data-share network and have linked over half of its local 47 police departments to the network so far.

"We've had some really great success stories in that data-share with everybody being able to pull up common names or partial license plates and then cross check them on the plate readers and from solving stabbings to premeditated murders," Golden said.

However, both lawmen agree that helping to combat an unprecedented number of drug overdose deaths and growing gang activity also has to involve the community.

"You know, like we tell the public, any little bit of information...You may not have witnessed the crime in progress, but you may have just seen something that was not right and that's what we're looking for because we then tie those pieces together," said Golden.

Both sheriff's were recently sworn in to three-year terms. The is the first three-year term for Sheriff Mike Mastronardy, who recently retired as Toms River's Police Chief.

Listen to the January Townsquare Tonight