Beginning in January 2020, staff from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office moved into our new building at 225 W. Madison. The former Maricopa County jail was transformed into a six-floor, state-of-the-art facility for nearly 1,000 MCAO employees. Many new features were included in this renovation, but one of the most significant changes was the addition of a separate waiting area and window to assist law enforcement.

Among the first groups to relocate to the new office were the 18 members of the Intake team. Intake receives and processes hundreds of submittals daily that come into the office from more than 30 different law enforcement agencies. The Intake area is ground zero for all cases being referred to the MCAO by law enforcement and staff who are trained to process incoming submittals, re-submittals, in custody cases, misdemeanors, in-jails, and basket cases. Although the office is advancing to a paperless model, many of the submittals arrive on paper, towering stacks of paper – that must be digitized and entered into the MCAO case management system so that prosecutors can make charging decisions, sometimes within mandated periods of time.

One addition in the new building that has been met with positive reviews, not only from Intake staff but also from Law Enforcement, is the large enclosed area now reserved for law enforcement, including their own entrance. Officers are no longer required to come through the main entrance with security. Instead, they can proceed to the side of the new building, where they will find a separate door leading directly to Intake.

There is a large, air-conditioned waiting area that includes chairs, tables, and office supplies. Officers have room to spread out, organize their paperwork and ensure everything is correct before submitting cases to the Intake staff. The window is staffed from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every weekday and MCAO Intake staff provides customer service, not only to officers, but also to subpoena servers and other law enforcement-related deliveries.

The resources available at this new Intake window help save time and significantly improve the experience for our law enforcement partners and create a more efficient process to ensure that justice can be timely.