United States National Sex Offenders Public Registry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Registry is a cooperative effort between U.S. state agencies that host public sex offender registries and the U.S. federal government. The registry is coordinated by the United States Department of Justice and operates a web site search tool allowing a user to submit a single query to obtain information about sex offenders throughout the United States.
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[edit] Purpose
State sex-offender registration and notification programs are designed, in general, to include information about offenders who have been convicted of a “criminal offense against a victim who is a minor” or a “sexually violent offense,” as specified in the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act (“the Wetterling Act”) [1] – more specifically, information about persons convicted of offenses involving sexual molestation or sexual exploitation of children, and persons convicted of rape and rape-like offenses (regardless of the age of the victim), respectively. Not all state web sites provide for public disclosure of information about all sex-offenders who reside, work, or attend school in the state. For example, one state may limit public disclosure over its web site of information concerning offenders who have been determined to be high-risk, while another state may provide for wider disclosure of offender information but make no representation as to risk level of specific offenders. Members of the public may be able to obtain certain types of information about specific offenders who reside, work, or attend school in the state and have been convicted of one or more of the types of offenses specified below, depending on the specific parameters of a given State’s public notification program.
[edit] Search capabilities
The National Sex Offender Public Registry website supports search by:
- name
- ZIP Code
- County (if provided by state)
- City/Town (if provided by state)
- State (one or multiple)
- National
The results are limited to what each individual state may provide. Information is hosted by each state, not by the federal government.
