Review of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act

December 2008 Washington DC:

Evaluation and Inspections Report I-2009-001, Office of the Inspector General

Results of the Review

SECTION I: DEPARTMENT EFFORTS TO IMPLEMENT SORNA

Although the Department prepared a memorandum in 2006 regarding implementation of SORNA, we determined that the memorandum reached only one of several Department components involved in implementing SORNA. Moreover, we found that the Department has no current plan to guide the components’ efforts to implement SORNA requirements. At the component level, OJP has issued software to all jurisdictions to connect sex offender public registries to the NSOPR portal, as required by SORNA, and OJP’s SMART Office also has continued to assist jurisdictions to implement enhancements to jurisdiction sex offender registry systems. However, the SMART Office took 2 years to issue implementation guidelines to the jurisdictions, and not all jurisdictions have used the software to connect their public registries to the NSOPR portal.

Other components also have taken steps to implement SORNA requirements. The United States Attorneys’ Offices and Criminal Division have assigned new and existing resources to prosecute federal fugitive sex offenders who fail to register or update a registration. The USMS has established a new investigative branch and re-assigned existing resources to increase federal investigations. The FBI has met SORNA requirements that it notify all relevant jurisdictions of updates to the NSOR database used by law enforcement and provide wider access to national crime information databases.

SORNA contains a variety of provisions for different Department components. We found that while Department components have begun implementing these SORNA provisions, not all SORNA provisions have been fully implemented. In the following sections, we describe the major requirements and the activities and progress of the Department in response to SORNA provisions. ..Continued..