SMART FY25 Maintenance and Operation of the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website

General Purpose of the Funding:
The Office of Justice Programs has supported NSOPW since 2005. In FY 2008, the SMART Office assumed management responsibility for this program as NSOPW is closely aligned with SMART’s mission, and jurisdiction participation (including states, the District of Columbia, principal U.S. territories and certain federally recognized Indian Tribes) is required by SORNA. Since 2008, Congress has specifically appropriated funds for NSOPW. At present, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the territories of American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands and 151 Tribes participate in NSOPW.

NSOPW operates similarly to a search engine and uses web services to access registered sex offender information directly from individual jurisdictions. NSOPW links to state, territory, the District of Columbia, and Tribal public sex offender registries and allows users to conduct nationwide searches for registered sex offenders with one query rather than searching jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Since its inception, NSOPW has been heavily queried by the public and has had over 735 million searches and over 2 billion page views. In 2016, the SMART Office launched the NSOPW mobile application, allowing users to search from any mobile device. Available on Android and iOS, users have used the application to conduct over 11 million searches.

In addition to the maintenance and support of NSOPW, this award supports the maintenance and enhancement of the SORNA Exchange Portal, a secure information-sharing system for jurisdictions as required under SORNA. This internet-based system provides a venue to streamline communication and coordination among jurisdictions’ sex offender registry officials, as well as federal agencies.

The cooperative agreement also supports the Tribe and Territory Sex Offender Registry System (TTSORS) and the Sex Offender Registry Tool (SORT). TTSORS is a web-based sex offender registry system that is free of charge to U.S territories and Indian Tribes that have elected to implement SORNA. TTSORS functions as both the administrative registry system and the public sex offender registry website for jurisdictions, which allows for participation in NSOPW. TTSORS also streamlines data sharing for Tribes participating in DOJ’s Tribal Access Program (TAP) by automatically sending registry information to the FBI’s National Sex Offender Registry (NSOR) and ensuring data synchronization between TTSORS and NSOR. In partnership with TAP, this cooperative agreement supports the development and enhancement of the TTSORS-NSOR interconnection tool, enabling over 100 Tribal sex offender registry databases to directly connect to NSOR and significantly increasing the accuracy, completeness, and timeliness of Tribal data shared with law enforcement nationwide. SORT is a similar tool that may be used by registration agencies in states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia, and provides a free customizable administrative registry system and public sex offender registry website. It is designed to enhance information-sharing capabilities and maximize efficiency and cost effectiveness of registry system setup and ongoing maintenance.

The award also supports training for each of the technology tools and related resource development for jurisdictions, as well as the monitoring, maintenance, and updating of the NSOPW mobile applications for Android and iOS and NSOPW’s social media page.

Applicants should refer to Application Contents, Submission Requirements, and Deadlines: Budget Detail Form for information on allowable and unallowable costs that may inform the development of their project design.