National Sex Offender Registry
Sex Offender Registration: How Does It Work ?

Sex offender registries are designed to alert community members of sex offenders living, working or studying within their area. All US states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and Guam, as well several native American tribes, each have a separate registry. Although laws regarding sex offender registries may vary depending on the state, there are some constants to be aware of.

An offender convicted of a sex crime must register as a sex offender once a sentence being delivered or, if time was spent in a prison or mental institution, once released into the community. Crimes such as sexual assault, offences relating to child pornography, indecent exposure and any other offence which a judge believes was committed out of sexual compulsion, are considered to be sex offences. A conviction of this kind will require an offender's name to appear on the relevant registry.

An offender will generally have to disclose the following information in a sex offender registry: full name and any aliases, address, date of birth, sex, race, height and weight, set of fingerprints, shoe size, eye and hair color, social security and driver's license number, accompanied by a recent photograph. Additional information regarding the crime committed, conviction, employee or student status may also appear on a public registry. The information provided about each offender may vary depending on the gravity of the crime and the resulting sentence.

If you wish to search for sex offenders in your area, registries will generally require you to enter your home address in order to deliver a list of any sex offenders living within a given radius of your home. Alternatively, you can find information about a specific sex offender by entering that person's full name into the registry's search engine.