ALEXANDRIA, VA – The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) released the results of its latest survey regarding the number of registered sex offenders located in the U.S. The organization’s most recent survey of states found there are 747,408 registered sex offenders in the country today, which represents an increase of 7,555 offenders from the previous survey in June 2011.
NCMEC conducted its first survey in 2006, which showed there were 606,816 registered sex offenders in the U.S. In just five years, an additional 140,592 convicted sex offenders have been added to sex offender registries across the country, an increase of 23.2%. The three states with the largest number of registered sex offenders are California (106,216), Texas (68,529) and Florida (57,896).
“The courts have long held that the requirement that a convicted sex offender register with authorities is not punitive, it is regulatory” said Ernie Allen, president and CEO of NCMEC. “It is a reasonable measure designed to provide important information to authorities and to help protect the public, particularly children. These registries are especially important because of the high risk of re-offense by some of these offenders, and the fact that most of the victims of America’s sex offenders are younger than 18 years of age.”
The first sex offender registry was created in 1947 in California. Today, every state has such a registry.
NCMEC created the survey in 2006, following the enactment of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act in July of that year. Each year since the survey was created, NCMEC contacts the sex offender registry in each state as well as registries located in the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories (Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). In the US Virgin Islands, St. Thomas and St. Croix maintain separate sex offender registries, bringing the total number of registries surveyed to 57.
“America has awakened to the threat posed by sex offenders,” said Allen. “Today, there is a system in place. Law enforcement is more vigilant and common-sense steps have been taken to better protect the public, particularly the children.”
NCMEC has conducted 13 sex offender register surveys since 2006 and were performed quarterly until 2009. Since then, they have been done twice each year.
In 2006 NCMEC also created a special dedicated Sex Offender Tracking Team. This group of analysts — working with the U.S. Marshals Service and state and local law enforcement — accesses donated public records data and aids in locating an estimated 100,000 noncompliant or fugitive sex offenders. To date, NCMEC has received 15,802 requests from law enforcement nationwide to assist in locating noncompliant sex offenders, and has provided 15,763 analytical leads packages to law enforcement, resulting in the apprehension of thousands of fugitives.
To see a breakdown of the number of registered sex offenders by state, download the Map of Registered Sex Offenders
Why don’t some of you guys try thinking for a change instead of immediately resorting to your ‘kill ’em all’ mentaliity. How ignornant.
Rest assured, a little dose of reality is coming to some of you who drank the government’s kool aid and actually think that there are 750,000 ‘predators’ running around on the streets waiting to rape and kill your kids. One of these days, someone you care about (maybe even your child) will end up on the registry and then you’ll realize how easy it is to end up on and how it has become a little bit of nazi Germany right here at home. Then maybe you’ll decide to educate yourself.
If we would just shoot them instead of putting them in jail, everyone would benefit.
Amen! Take back the streets now! The courts won’t do it!
I agree the kids would be safe and it would cost us taxpayers alot less money! Bullets are cheap.
I say a prison is to good for them!! I know one repeat offender who is sitting in a Illinois prison for 20 years. He had 3 yes 3 convictions in Iowa he goes to prison for a SHORT time gets out and goes to Ill. so he can get away with it again. I wish these Judges would think about their children when they are thinking about putting these sick people away an maybe they’d never get out!! So many innocent children hurt.
Mark chapter 7: For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts. Sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’
Yeah, and apparently Catholic priests never open their Bibles. Amen.
Where is that 93% figure coming from? Can you give us the source? Would appreciate it.
93% of Sexual Predators are Religious. How many more religious cases of abuse will happen before we start including sexual abuse and molestation conversation in the church? As a victor of child sexual abuse, and a Christian I just wanted to know if there was any mention at all of sexual abuse as a sin in the bible?
Staggering. Simply staggering. We have become as Sodom and now paying for our sins, propagated by gay marriages and decadence.
Sex offenders are almost always HETEROsexual. And please don’t try to tell me pedophiles are gay. They’re perverts who prey on innocent children, whether the children are the same sex as the pedophile or the opposite sex. They’re after CHILDREN.
Some of the best people I know happen to be gay. One of the best teachers I had was gay. Who would you rather associate with, a sex offender, a pedophile, or a gay person who is not out to hurt anyone?
Religious leaders (from the beginning of time) have done more harm and caused more deaths than all of the world’s gays put together. Most wars are fought in the name of religion. And don’t get me started on the Bible. It can be interpreted ANY way you want it to be. And, by the way, if you believe that Jesus was Christ you must also believe that he accepted EVERYONE. Why can’t YOU??
Catholic Priests = Pedophiles