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Abstract: 

One of the best known, and most controversial, criminal justice developments of the last two decades has been the development and expansion of sex offender registries and notification. Previous research has well established that listing on a web-based sex offender registry yields numerous, profound, and debilitating collateral consequences for registrants. It is therefore important to examine the content and maneuverability of sex offender registries as they are currently available. In doing so, this study updates the research of Tewksbury and Higgins published by JCC in 2005 and discusses overall changes, additions, and deletions to the registries that have occurred during the past eight years. Findings suggest that, in general, registries have expanded significantly during this period with regard both to the amount of information available for each offender and the ways of searching for sex offenders by various characteristics. The paper discusses these changes and their policy implications.

Keywords: Sex offender registries, sex offenders, community notification, content of registries

Affiliations:  1: University of Central Florida; 2: University of Louisville.