Spotlight: State Sex Offender Registry

A search of the Sex Offender Registry can be conducted at a national level and at the state level. Most clients ask to have both searches included in their background investigation package to ensure they are getting all available levels of sex offenders so that they are not hiring an individual who may cause harm to someone else. It’s important to realize that the national search does not include all level of sex offenders for every state.

Michelle Pyan, President of Commercial Investigations LLC, stated in a recent article “Do you think the press is going to differentiate the level of offense when publishing that you hired a sex offender?” Well you may already know the answer to that question, absolutely not! Most states have different levels of sex offenders and each level is categorized by the severity of the crime committed and the likelihood to that the individual will reoffend. For example, New York State (NYS) has three levels. Level one being the lowest risk of re-offending and level three being the highest risk of re-offending. Per New York State, only the level two and three sex offender information is available to the public via an online search.

Therefore, these are also the only two levels available in the national registry search. A state specific search is required to obtain all the levels available in New York State. Our trained investigators obtain that information from the NYS Sex Offender Registry directly. The same is true in the states of Massachusetts and Oregon. A similar process is required to obtain all publicly available sex offender information in these states.