{{Sex offender registries in the United States The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, colloquially known as the Wetterling Act, is a

United States law The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as v ...

that requires states to implement a

registry Registry may refer to: Computing * Container registry, an operating-system-level virtualization registry * Domain name registry, a database of top-level internet domain names * Local Internet registry * Metadata registry, information system for re ...

sex offender A sex offender (sexual offender, sex abuser, or sexual abuser) is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crime ...

s and crimes against children. It is named for

Jacob Wetterling Jacob Erwin Wetterling (February 17, 1978 – October 22, 1989) was an American boy from St. Joseph, Minnesota, who was kidnapped from his hometown and murdered on October 22, 1989, at the age of 11. His abduction remained a mystery for nearly t ...

, a Minnesota eleven-year-old who was abducted by a stranger in 1989, and was missing for almost 27 years until his death was confirmed when his remains were found on September 1, 2016. The law, enacted as part of the

Federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, commonly referred to as the 1994 Crime Bill, the Clinton Crime Bill, or the Biden Crime Law, is an Act of Congress dealing with crime and law enforcement; it became law in 1994. It is ...

, requires states to form registries of offenders convicted of sexually violent offenses or offenses against children, and to form more rigorous registration requirements for sex offenders. States must also verify the addresses of sex offenders annually for at least ten years, and those offenders classified as sexually violent predators must verify their addresses quarterly for the rest of their lives. The Wetterling Act required state compliance by September 1997, with a two-year extension for good faith efforts to achieve compliance; non-compliance would result in a 10% reduction of federal block grant funds for criminal justice. Under this law, states had discretion to disseminate registration information to the public, but dissemination was not required. Congress amended the Wetterling Act in 1996 with

Megan’s Law Megan's Law is the name for a federal law (and informal name for subsequent state laws) in the United States requiring law enforcement authorities to make information available to the public regarding registered sex offenders. Laws were creat ...

, requiring law enforcement agencies to release information about registered sex offenders that law enforcement deems relevant to protecting the public. Also passed by Congress in 1996 was the Pam Lychner Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act. This act requires the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

(FBI) to establish a national database of sex offenders to assist local enforcement agencies in tracking sex offenders across state lines. The Wetterling Act was amended for the final time in 1998 with Section 115 of the General Provisions of Title I of the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (CJSA). The CJSA amendment provided for greater discretion among states for procedures used for contacting registered offenders to keep their addresses updated. Also, the CJSA required offenders to register in a state other than their own if they were there for school, and required federal and military employees to register in their state of residence.

See also