WASHINGTON, July 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. Justice Department Wednesday activated its online National Sex Offender Public Registry, linking the registries of 22 states.
The site is located at nsopr.gov.
"Citizens will now be able to search the latest information for the identity and location of known sex offenders across state boundaries," said Regina B. Schofield, assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs.
The department said the free site allows computer users to make a single query to search public state and territory sex offender registries for results based on a name, state, county, town or Zip Code.
The remaining state public sex offender registries are expected to be linked to the NSOPR within six months, the department said.
There are more than 500,000 registered sex offenders nationwide and statistics have shown the recidivism rate for these offenders is high, the department said.
