WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced that all 50 states are now participating in the National Sex Offender Public Registry (NSOPR) Web site.
South Dakota and Oregon have now been added to the Web site, which provides real-time access to public sex offender data nationwide with a single Internet search. The DOJ-sponsored site allows parents and concerned citizens to search existing public state and territory sex offender registries beyond their own states.
The DOJ announced the activation of a national registry Web site last year and initially linked 22 states to the site. Oregon and South Dakota recently passed the sex offender legislation that now allows the state to be included in the NSOPR. With the addition of these two states inclusion, the registry connects 50 states, the District of Columbia and the territory of Guam the site. The list of the states and territory currently available through NSOPR follows.
The NSOPR provides an opportunity for all states and territories to participate in an unprecedented public safety resource by sharing comprehensive, public sex offender data with citizens nationwide. NSOPR searches public state and territory sex offender registries to deliver matched results based on a name, state, county, city/town or zip code through a single query on its Web site located at www.nsopr.gov.The technology for NSOPR is both time and cost-effective. Web services and DOJ’s Global Justice eXtensible Markup Language (XML) establishes a link between existing state and territory public sex offender registries. The link allows data from different hardware and software systems to be recognized and shown through the national search site. With more than 500,000 registered sex offenders nationwide, access to national public registry information is essential for citizens to help identify sex offenders beyond their own streets or neighborhoods.
States/Territory Linked to the NSOPR include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado,Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
