A Content Analysis of Sex Offender Registries: The Influence of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) on Registry Information

• Published date: 01 October 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/08874034231187300
• Author: John C. Navarro,Christina L. Shellabarger
• Date: 01 October 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/08874034231187300

Criminal Justice Policy Review

2023, Vol. 34(5) 488 –505

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/08874034231187300

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Article

A Content Analysis of

Sex Offender Registries:

The Influence of the Sex

Offender Registration and

Notification Act (SORNA) on

Registry Information

John C. Navarro1

and Christina L. Shellabarger2

Abstract

Sex offender registries contain information available for public access through

websites. In 2006, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), a

core piece of the Adam Walsh Act, was introduced to overhaul the disparate SORN

systems across states. Although instrumental in systematizing the sex offender policy,

there has yet to be a sufficient investigation into SORNA’s effects in shaping public

website registry requirements. Our quantitative content analysis of 50 state sex

offender online registries categorized the 88 identified registry elements into seven

mutually exclusive features: liability concerns, dissemination of information, mapping

features, search features, listing details of registrants, offense information, and victim

information. Findings show that states largely share many common registry elements,

with multivariate analyses suggesting SORNA-compliant registries are more likely

to publicly share eight elements specifically relating to registrants’ search and listing

features and offense location.

Keywords

sex offender registries, Adam Walsh Act, sex offenders, notification, content analysis

1Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX, USA

2Washington State University, Pullman, USA

Corresponding Author:

John C. Navarro, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sam Houston State University,

Huntsville, TX 77341, USA.

Email: jxn044@shsu.edu

1187300CJPXXX10.1177/08874034231187300Criminal Justice Policy ReviewNavarro and Shellabarger

research-article2023

Navarro and Shellabarger 489

Introduction

Sex offender registries in the United States consist of federal and state-level systems

that collate information about convicted sex offenders for law enforcement and public

notification purposes. The sharing of registrant data through public websites is wide-

spread, with its distribution of information publicly accessible via websites in all 50

states. As of October 2021, registries disseminated information on 973,258 registered

sex offenders.1

Although several states developed sex offender registration and notification (SORN)

policies prior to it being a federal mandate, the development of sex offender registries

became prevalent in the 1990s and 2000s. During this time, there was an advent of fed-

eral policies that formalized sex offender registries and extended the availability of this

information to the public. However, a lack of standardization yielded interstate dispari-

ties regarding what information was communicated among agencies and to the public.

Concerns about interjurisdictional coordination, enforcement, and information sharing

were furthered when registry advocates linked the unsubstantiated claim of 100,000

missing or lost registrants to the heterogeneity of SORN policies between states (Harris

et al., 2020; Levenson & Harris, 2012). The enactment of the Sex Offender Registration

and Notification Act (SORNA), a federal law under Title I of the Adam Walsh Child

Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (AWA), aimed to improve the efficiency of sex

offender legislation by focusing on data quality, access, consistency, and exchange.

While SORNA has led to increased legislative efforts to collect more information about

individuals convicted of sexual offenses for law enforcement and public notification

purposes, there are judiciary concerns that as the number of registrants grows online, law

enforcement resources are becoming strained, which may negatively impact the ability

of the public to identify registrants who pose a risk (Doe v. Snyder, 2016).

Two reasons support the importance of an investigation of registry content and how it

has adapted to SORNA. First, we bring attention to the need to generalize existing

research on registry content to the present context (Brewster et al., 2012; Mustaine &

Tewksbury, 2013; Tewksbury & Higgins, 2005), particularly as the registrant population

has increased from 500,000 in 2005 to almost one million, with an annual growth of over

25,000 registrants (Harris et al., 2020; Tewksbury & Higgins, 2005). A 2019 opinion

debated at the United States Supreme Court level held that SORNA is a retroactive policy,

substantially increasing the number of individuals listed on the registries since most sex

offenders were identified as pre-act offenders (Gundy v. United States, 2019). Second,

each iteration of research reviewing online registries demonstrated marked differences in

the registry elements that were publicly shared (Brewster et al., 2012; Mustaine &

Tewksbury, 2013; Tewksbury & Higgins, 2005), and subsequent work by Harris et al.

(2017, 2020) helps identify the wider impact of SORNA on registry elements.

Sex Offender Legislation

The expansion of sex offender registries is associated with laws passed at the federal

level in the 1990s and 2000s, which were a response to high-profile sex crime cases