Sex offender registries in the United States
 City wide map of exclusion zones in Milwaukee as of 2 February 2014. Red and orange highlights denote areas where registered sex offenders cannot reside within the city. |
Sex offender registries in the United States exist at both the federal and state levels. They assemble information about persons convicted of sexual offenses for law enforcement and public notification purposes. All 50 states and the District of Columbia maintain sex offender registries that are open to the public via websites, although information on some offenders is visible to law enforcement only. According to NCMEC, as of 2016 there were 859,500 registered sex offenders in United States. Sex Offender Registration and Notification (SORN) has been studied for its impact on the rates of sexual recidivism for registered sex offenders, with the majority of studies demonstrating no impact.
The majority of states and the federal government apply systems based on conviction offenses only, where the requirement to register as a sex offender is a consequence of conviction of or guilty plea to a "sex offense" that triggers a mandatory registration requirement. The trial judge typically can not exercise judicial discretion, and is barred from considering mitigating factors with respect to registration. The definition of a registerable sex offense can vary significantly from one jurisdiction to another.
Sex offenders must periodically report in person to their local law enforcement agency and furnish their address, and list of other information such as place of employment and email addresses. The offenders are photographed and fingerprinted by law enforcement, and in some cases DNA information is also collected. Registrants are often subject to restrictions that bar them from working or living within a defined distance of schools, parks, and the like; these restrictions can vary from county to county and from one municipality to another.
Depending on jurisdiction, offenses requiring registration range in their severity from public urination or adolescent sexual experimentation with peers, to violent rape and murder of children. In a few states non-sexual offenses such as unlawful imprisonment requires sex offender registration. According to Human Rights Watch, children as young as 9 have been placed on the registry;juvenile offenders account for 25 percent of registrants.
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