Sex Offender Registries

Every state, the District of Columbia, the territories and many tribal governments keep a sex offender registry, and the federal government runs a search that reaches all of them at once. The registries are among the most used public records in the country and among the least understood. They are not a list of everyone accused of a sex crime, they do not all show the same people, and a listing carries legal rules for the person on it and for the person reading it. This page explains what a registry is, what it shows, how the tiers work, how long a listing lasts, how someone gets off one, and how to search the official registries without going through a commercial site.

A registry is a list of people who have been convicted of, or adjudicated for, an offense that state or federal law designates as registrable, and who are required by that law to report their address, employment, school, vehicles and other details to law enforcement for a set period or for life. The registering agency is usually the state police or department of public safety, with the local sheriff or police department taking the actual registration.

A registry is not a list of arrests. An arrest, a dismissed charge or an acquittal does not put anyone on a registry; only a conviction, a guilty or no contest plea, or a juvenile adjudication for a registrable offense does. A registry is also not a complete criminal history: it shows the registrable offense and the registration details, not the rest of the person's record.

Which offenses are registrable differs by state. All states register rape, sexual assault and sexual offenses against children. Many also register kidnapping or false imprisonment of a minor even without a sexual element, and some register offenses such as indecent exposure or possession of child sexual abuse material at different tiers. The common claim that public urination puts people on registries is essentially a myth; where it has happened it required a conviction for indecent exposure under specific facts, and most states have removed or narrowed those cases.

Three federal laws shaped every registry. The Jacob Wetterling Act of 1994 required states to keep registries. Megan's Law in 1996 required them to make information available to the public. The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 contains the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, known as SORNA, which sets minimum national standards: three tiers based on the offense, registration periods of 15 years for tier I (reducible to 10 with a clean record), 25 years for tier II and life for tier III, in-person verification every year, six months or three months by tier, and registration within three business days of moving to a new state. Failure to register after crossing state lines is a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. 2250.

SORNA sets a floor, not a uniform system. Fewer than half of the states have been found by the Justice Department to have fully implemented it. The others keep systems that meet or exceed federal expectations in their own way, most importantly by classifying people through individual risk assessment rather than by offense alone.

Offense-based states follow the SORNA tiers: the conviction determines the tier and the tier determines how long and how visibly the person registers. Risk-based states assign a level after a hearing or an assessment. New York uses three levels set by a court on the recommendation of its Board of Examiners of Sex Offenders; level 1 registrants do not appear on the state's public website, levels 2 and 3 do. New Jersey holds Megan's Law tier hearings and publishes only moderate and high risk registrants online. Massachusetts uses a Sex Offender Registry Board with three levels; level 1 information is not public. Minnesota publishes only its highest risk level for community notification. Washington, Oregon and several others use similar risk levels.

The practical result: two people convicted of the same offense in different states can be on a public website in one state and invisible to the public in the other, and both are lawfully registered. A search that returns nothing in a risk-based state does not mean no registration exists; it means the person is not in a public tier there.

A public registry entry usually carries the name and known aliases, a current photograph, date of birth or age, a physical description, the address at the level the state releases (full address, block, or ZIP code), the offense with the statute and the date of conviction, the tier or level, and in some states the vehicle, place of employment or school. Some states show compliance status, whether the person is current on verification or is listed as absconded.

It does not show the victim, the facts of the case beyond the offense name, other convictions, arrests, or anything about people who were charged and not convicted. Juvenile registrants are handled separately: SORNA requires registration for certain serious offenses committed at age 14 or older, but most states keep juvenile registrants off the public website or limit what is shown.

Registration periods run from ten years to life depending on the state, the tier and the person's record. In SORNA states tier I ends after 15 years, or 10 with a clean record and completed treatment or supervision, tier II after 25 years, tier III at death, with a possible reduction after 25 years for juvenile adjudications. Risk-based states set their own periods; New York registers level 1 for 20 years and levels 2 and 3 for life, with a petition to modify the level available.

Removal is by petition to a court or to the registering agency after the minimum period, with the burden on the registrant to show compliance and, in many states, a risk assessment. California replaced lifetime registration for everyone with a three-tier system in 2021: tier 1 may petition after 10 years, tier 2 after 20, tier 3 remains for life, under Penal Code section 290.5. Several states have Romeo and Juliet provisions for consensual relationships between teenagers and young adults; Florida's, in section 943.04354, allows a petition for removal when the victim was at least 14, the registrant no more than four years older, and the contact consensual.

A pardon, a set-aside or an expungement does not automatically end registration in every state; the registration statute decides, and the person has to check it and often file separately.

Residency restrictions are state and local law, not federal. Iowa bars registrants convicted of offenses against minors from living within 2,000 feet of a school or child care facility under Iowa Code section 692A.114. Florida's state law sets 1,000 feet from schools, parks and playgrounds for certain offenders, and many Florida cities and counties impose 2,500 feet. California's 2,000 foot rule under Jessica's Law was limited by the California Supreme Court in 2015 as applied to parolees in San Diego County and is now applied case by case for parolees. Other states have no statewide residency restriction at all. Employment restrictions follow the same pattern, mainly around schools and child care.

Moving does not end registration. A registrant who moves to another state must register there, generally within three business days, and the new state applies its own classification, which can be higher or lower than the old one. Since the International Megan's Law of 2016, registrants convicted of offenses against minors receive a passport with a unique identifier and must give notice of international travel.

Every registry site states the rule and the penalty: the information is provided for public safety, and using it to harass, threaten, discriminate unlawfully against or commit a crime against a registrant is itself a crime, with criminal penalties in most states and civil liability in others. Landlords and employers can look, but many states restrict how registry information may be used in housing and hiring, and the federal Fair Housing Act and state civil rights laws still apply.

The registries also warn about accuracy. Entries depend on the registrant reporting and the agency updating; addresses can lag, photos can be years old, and name matches are not identity matches. Someone who believes an entry about them is wrong disputes it with the registering agency of that state, which can correct the state record and the national search.

The Department of Justice runs the National Sex Offender Public Website, which sends a search to every state, territory and tribal registry at once and returns the public results of each. It is free and does not require an account. Every state also runs its own site, which is the record of authority for that state and often shows more, including compliance status and map searches by address. The state page linked below for each state goes to that state's official registry and to the sheriffs that carry out local registration and community notification.

Commercial sites that republish registry data add nothing to the official record and often lag behind it; the official registry is the one a court, a landlord or an employer will accept.

Is everyone convicted of a sex offense on the public registry? No. Registration depends on the offense and the state, and public display depends on the tier or level; low risk registrants are not shown online in several states.

Can an arrest put someone on the registry? No. Registries are conviction and adjudication based.

Does the registry show the victim or the details? No. It shows the offense as charged in the statute, the conviction date and the registration details.

Can a registrant live near a school? It depends on the state and often the city; some states have a statewide distance rule, many do not.

How do I get off the registry? By petition after the minimum period set by your state, or automatically when the period ends in states that provide for it; the registering agency's own page lists the procedure.

Is it legal to share a registry entry on social media to warn neighbors? Sharing public information is generally lawful; using it to harass, threaten or discriminate is a crime. The registry sites state the line.

The state registry, run by the state police or public safety department, is the record of authority. The county sheriff or local police registers the person and handles community notification. The court holds the conviction. The Justice Department's national search reaches all of the state registries. Their official pages for every state are linked from the state list on this page.

The federal law that built the modern system is the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, or SORNA. It's Title I of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. SORNA sets the minimum standards every state registry has to meet. States can be stricter than SORNA. They can't be looser without losing federal funding.

The public-facing search that covers everything in one query is NSOPW.gov, the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website. It's run by the Department of Justice's SMART Office. When you search there, you're really searching every state, territory, and tribe at once.

A registry entry is not the same thing as a criminal record. It's not a background check. It's a post-release supervision and notification tool. If you need an actual criminal history for hiring, renting, or insurance decisions, you need a real background check from a Consumer Reporting Agency that follows the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Registry data is not a legal substitute.

The FBI's overview of the registry system and related public-safety resources. Mostly background, not a search tool.

Three federal laws stacked on top of each other to make the modern registry.

The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act. First federal law that required every state to create a registry. Public notification was allowed but not required.

Signed by President Clinton on May 17, 1996. Amended the Wetterling Act and required states to release relevant information to the public when needed for safety. Named after seven-year-old Megan Kanka of New Jersey.

Standardized everything. Created the three-tier classification system still in use. Required quarterly in-person verification for the most serious offenders. Mandated public online registries.

Every registrable offense falls into one of three tiers based on how serious the underlying crime is. The tier sets how long someone has to register, how often they have to verify in person, and how visible the listing is.

Source, SORNA section 115, 34 U.S.C. section 20915, and the SMART Office. States can go longer than SORNA's floor. North Carolina puts Tier II at 30 years, for example. They can't go shorter without falling out of compliance.

Federal law sets a floor. Above that, every state runs its own registry on its own software with its own display rules. So the search you do in Texas does not look like the search you do in Vermont.

• Search fields are different.Some states let you search by name, ZIP code, address radius, or physical description. Some only let you search by name or county. A few only let you search by exact name match, which is useless if you have the wrong spelling.
• The data shown on a record is different.Most states show name, photo, physical description, offense, and a general location. Some go further and show the precise home address, employer, vehicle, school, or social media identifiers. A few are much more limited.
• Update frequency is different.Some registries update in real time when an offender registers, moves, or absconds. Others batch updates daily, weekly, or monthly. A new registration event can take anywhere from 3 to 15 days to show up publicly.
• Juvenile rules are different.Federal law lets each state decide whether to publicly list juveniles adjudicated for Tier III offenses. Some states publish them. Most don't.
• Removal rules are different.Most states let Tier I offenders petition to be removed after the registration period if they have a clean record. Tier III is usually lifetime everywhere.

Start at NSOPW.gov. It's the fastest single search and it covers everything.

If you find someone, click through to the state registry. The state version often has more detail than what NSOPW shows.

If you don't find someone you expected to find, that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't on a registry. It can mean the spelling in the registry doesn't match what you typed. Try variations, including middle names and common misspellings. It can mean they registered recently and the data hasn't pushed to NSOPW yet. It can also mean they completed their registration period and were removed legally.

For neighborhood-level searches, the registry's map view is usually the right tool. NSOPW has a map. Most states have one too. They show registered offenders within a radius of an address.

• Use it for tenant screening on its own.Federal law requires that decisions about housing, employment, credit, or insurance go through an FCRA-compliant background check. Pulling a name off the registry and denying a rental application is a legal problem.
• Use it for employment screening on its own.Same reason.
• Harass, intimidate, threaten, vandalize, or retaliate against a registered offender.Every state's registry statute prohibits this. Federal law does too. Some states impose criminal penalties.
• Republish or scrape the data for commercial use.Most state registries have terms of use that prohibit this. Some have actively pursued sites that did it.

The registry exists for community awareness. That's the legal use. Anything beyond awareness gets into territory that violates either federal civil rights law or the state's own registration statute.