US Dept. of Justice NSOPW App

Institute for Intergovernmental Research

About this app

This is the official U.S. Department of Justice national sex offender search app. This app is funded through a grant from the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (“SMART”), Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. SMART is responsible for The Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW), a public safety resource that provides the public with free access to sex offender data nationwide. This application is designed to provide additional access to NSOPW.

This app provides users with information about registered sex offenders that have residential, employment, or school addresses that are within a close proximity of the mobile device running the app. Searches can be conducted nationally using a ¼ mile, ½ mile, or 1 mile radius or by offender name. The initial search will be performed based upon the location of the mobile device, but searches can be run from other locations by tapping those locations on the map. In the event that the registering jurisdiction (state, territory, Indian tribe, or District of Columbia) for the user’s area does not allow searching by geographic coordinates for registered sex offender addresses, a zip code search will be used to find matching offenders and the results can be viewed by tapping the status message at the top of the app. NSOPW is actively working with all jurisdictions to allow searching by geographic coordinates and will modify the app searching capabilities as improvements become available.

Please be aware that when you tap the “More Information” button when viewing the details of a matching record you will be directed to the details about the particular registered sex offender on the registering jurisdiction’s public sex offender website. These websites are outside of NSOPW’s control and may not be mobile device friendly.

The purpose of this app is solely to provide users with the ability to search for registered sex offender by location and name. If you would like sexual abuse education and prevention information or have questions about sex offender registration in general please visit NSOPW at nsopw.gov.

Ratings and reviews

An app to "help" the public but won't pinpoint the locations on the map as it is advertised. Instead, you get a list to the zip code your at only, and that's it! Technology is very advance and yet it tells a lot that this app offers the bare minimum. To get more details of an individual you got to click 2 links then hit the back button to do that to the long list of people registered. Very disappointing, also read the agreement to use this app is absurd. Not liable for accuracy, timeline, ect.

I was unable to get the 1/4-mi & 1/2-mi searches to work (error: "Search took too long." even when it was a few seconds), but it allowed me to get some info on the perps with the 1-mile search. Sometimes, if I clicked on a pin on the map, it would show a photo, name and age, but usually not. Clicking on the list view was a bit better and I was sometimes able to get further info from my County Sex Offender Registry, but it didn't necessarily want to work. The website was also a bit glitchy, although that may be because of my extensions that protect me too vigorously at times. ;) As a basic tool, it's fine, but I wish it didn't have glitches and provided a wider radius like Offender Locator's app. Thanks, DOJ.

Besides a glich or two that's alway been fixed, this app has always worked well for me. Love the new 1, 2, and 3 mile options. I keep track of my neighborhood, as well as both my kids' and friends' neighborhoods in different cities. Keep in mind it's only as accurate as the offender following the law and registering their current address and law enforcement agencies making sure they do. If you know an offender has moved to an area and not registered, report it to their local law enforcement.

What's new

Stability improvements