Frequently asked questions
Is this an official government website?
No. Offender Map is an independent, unofficial project. It is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (NCSBI), the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), the Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS), the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), the Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP), the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA), or any other government agency. See About & Data Sources.
Where does the data come from?
Offender and registration records come from each state's own registry: the North Carolina Sex Offender and Public Protection Registry (NCSBI), the Florida Sexual Offender and Predator Registry (FDLE), the Texas Public Sex Offender Registry (TxDPS), the Georgia Sex Offender Registry (GBI), and the Missouri and DC registries. School locations come from public school directories, plus private-school and child care directories for North Carolina. Full details are on the About page.
How often is the site updated?
The full site is rebuilt from the registry daily. Street-address and ZIP-centroid geocoding is refreshed incrementally where used; DC block-level points come from the registry export. The current snapshot time is shown on the home page and on every county page.
Why does a map pin look like it's in the wrong spot?
Location precision varies by jurisdiction. Address geocodes and ZIP centroids are approximate; the DC registry provides generalized block-level points and only an unambiguous HOME block is mapped. Administrative and placeholder addresses are not mapped. A block or geocoded point does not confirm who currently lives at a location. "Nearby" distances are straight-line (great-circle), not driving distances.
Is "within 3 miles" a driving distance?
No. Distances on school pages are straight-line (great-circle) distance from the school, not driving distance, and are limited to a 3-mile radius.
Someone I expected to see isn't listed, or someone disappeared. Why?
This site only reproduces what's in the official registry at the time of the daily rebuild. Registrations end, addresses change, and records are added or removed on the state's own schedule, not this site's.
Can I get an entry removed or corrected?
This site cannot alter official registry records. For a correction to an official registration, or for the authoritative record on any individual, use that state's official registry — linked from the About & Data Sources page — directly. If the error is specific to this website (a wrong map pin, a broken page), use the Contact page.
Can I download or reuse this data?
The underlying records are public information published by each state. For bulk data or research use, the authoritative source is that state's official registry, linked from the About & Data Sources page; please review its terms before republishing. Georgia's GBI registry page links the public latest-registry CSV download.
Glossary
Registered address
The address an individual has reported to the registry, as required by law. It may not reflect where someone is physically present at any given moment.
Offense description
The offense or conviction description shown for an offender, as published in the registry record. North Carolina, Texas, and Georgia publish offense descriptions; Florida's public data file contains no offense information, so Florida entries show none.
Risk level
The Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS) publishes a High/Moderate/Low risk assessment for some Texas registrants. It is shown as TxDPS's assessment, not this site's judgement. Georgia's GBI export contains a separate `LEVELING` field; it is not displayed or interpreted as a risk assessment. North Carolina and Florida do not publish a risk-level field.
ZIP centroid
The approximate geographic center of a ZIP code area, used as a fallback map location when a specific street address cannot be geocoded.
Snapshot
The full set of registry and school data as it existed at the time of a given daily rebuild. Every page on this site reflects a specific snapshot, dated at the top of the home page.