How the Sex Offender Registry Works in Delaware

The Delaware Sex Offender Central Registry exists because Title 11, sections 4120 and 4121 of the Delaware Code require the Delaware State Police to maintain a registry of sex offenders available to the public over the internet; the State Bureau of Identification is the sub unit of the State Police that provides the service, with technical help from the Department of Technology and Information, and it answers at the Sex Offender Central Registry, P.O. Box 430, Dover, DE 19903 and (302) 739-5882. Two limits are stated on the front page. Only people convicted of the sex offences Delaware law specifies register, so a person arrested but not convicted does not appear; and the website includes only those registered sex offenders the courts have classified as moderate risk or high risk, while offenders classified as low risk are not displayed on the public site at all. The bureau updates the information regularly, but it comes from the offenders themselves as the law requires, so a record believed to be wrong goes to the bureau through any of its contacts, and a tip about a particular offender may be passed to the appropriate agency for investigation. Positive identification of a person believed to be a sex offender cannot be established unless the offender's fingerprints are compared with the prints taken at arrest or incarceration, which is what the bureau's separate criminal history service under Title 11, chapter 85 is for.

The site is built around places as much as names. Its offender search takes a last and first name, a house number, a street prefix, name and type, a development, a county, a city, a ZIP code, a workplace, the state of conviction or an online identifier, with a box to exclude offenders living in Department of Correction facilities; a neighborhood search puts offenders on a map that is rebuilt nightly from the day's registrations, so an address may take up to 24 hours to appear and an address the system cannot geocode never appears, which is why the bureau points anyone wanting complete results back to the offender search; and separate tabs list homeless offenders and wanted offenders. Because automated tools scraping offender data overload the servers, the site asks a visitor to prove they are not an automated tool and then allows ten pages of results or ten offender records before asking again. An email subscription runs through the Delaware Information Subscription Service, where an account holder subscribes to the Sex Offender Notification Subscription for changes and additions to the registry. The police department or State Police troop for any Delaware address is on the Delaware county pages.

  • Search: the Sex Offender Central Registry by name, street, development, county, city, ZIP code, workplace, conviction state or online identifier, with a nightly updated neighborhood map and lists of homeless and wanted offenders.
  • Who appears: only the offenders the courts classified as moderate risk, Tier 2, or high risk, Tier 3; low risk Tier 1 offenders register but are not displayed on the public website.
  • Registration: a form filed with the Sex Offender Registry at the State Bureau of Identification giving every alias, the date of birth, the licence or identification card, telephone numbers, Social Security number, every residence, the employer, the school, every vehicle, all email addresses and internet identifiers, a copy of the passport, the immigration status and copies of professional licences.
  • Duration: Tier 1 offenders register for 15 years and Tier 2 offenders for 25 years, with a Tier 1 petition to the Superior Court available after ten years of treatment and a clean record.

Written by SearchSystems.net from Delaware's own systems: the Delaware Sex Offender Central Registry, the Delaware State Police criminal background check page, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.

The offences that require registration

Under Delaware law a sex offender is anyone convicted of, or of an attempt to commit, any of the offences the registry lists: indecent exposure in the first degree; incest; unlawful sexual contact in the third, second and first degrees; rape in the fourth, third, second and first degrees; sexual extortion; bestiality; continuous sexual abuse of a child; a dangerous crime against a child; female genital mutilation; dealing in children; sexual exploitation of a child; unlawfully dealing in child pornography and possession of child pornography; sexual solicitation of a child; violation of privacy, where it involves recordings, photographs, films or videotapes of another person dressing or undressing or with the genitals, buttocks or breasts exposed, without consent, in a place where people normally disrobe such as a fitting room, dressing room, locker room or bathroom, or the secret recording of another person through clothing to view the body or the undergarments; promoting prostitution in the second degree where the person advances or profits from the prostitution of someone under 18 and in the first degree where that person is under 16; obscenity, where the person sells, delivers or provides obscene material to someone under 18; kidnapping in the second and first degrees where the crime was committed to inflict physical injury on the victim or to violate or abuse the victim sexually; and trafficking of persons under the listed subsection.

Convicted carries more than its ordinary meaning here: it includes adjudications of delinquency and people who plead guilty or are found guilty but mentally ill or not guilty by reason of insanity. A person convicted in another state, in federal court, in a United States territory or under a foreign government of an offence that is the same as or equivalent to a Delaware registerable offence must register here too.

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What the registration form asks

A registrant completes a registration form and files it with the Sex Offender Registry at the State Bureau of Identification, giving all names and aliases ever used, the date of birth, the driver licence or state issued identification card, the telephone numbers including home and cellular, the Social Security number, the residential address or addresses, the employer's name, address and telephone number, the school's name, address and telephone number, the vehicle information for every vehicle owned or operated with the year, make, model, colour and plate number, all email addresses and internet identifiers, a copy of the passport, the immigration status and copies of any professional licences.

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The tiers, and who assigns them

Delaware tiers are a court matter rather than a police one. Every out of state offender is assigned a tier by the Superior Court after the Attorney General's office moves for one, and every in state offender who does not already have a tier, which the registry explains is mainly people whose crimes occurred before 1997, is sent a letter with a presumptive tier assigned, after which the offender may seek a Board of Parole review or leave the presumptive tier in place without review.

Tier 1 offenders are classified as low risk, Tier 2 offenders as moderate risk and Tier 3 offenders as high risk, and that classification decides what the public sees, since the website shows the moderate and high risk offenders and leaves the low risk ones off.

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Fifteen years, twenty-five years, and the petitions

Tier 1 offenders must register for 15 years and Tier 2 offenders must register for 25 years. A Tier 1 offender may petition the Superior Court for relief from designation as a sex offender after ten years, provided the offender has successfully completed a state approved sex offender treatment programme and has not been convicted of any crime other than a motor vehicle offence during that time, and a Tier 2 offender may likewise petition the Superior Court for relief. The route is always through the court: the bureau maintains the record but does not set or change a tier.

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Correcting a record, and identifying a person

The bureau asks anyone who believes information in the registry is incorrect to use any of the contacts at the foot of the site, and runs a tip form where a message is enough, though an email address and other contact details help when the tip concerns a particular offender, because the tip may be passed to the appropriate law enforcement agency for follow up investigation and that is how the site is kept accurate. Knowingly providing false information, and using the information to commit a criminal act against another person, are both prosecutable, and using it to threaten, intimidate or harass a registrant or the registrant's family, or otherwise misusing it, may bring criminal prosecution or civil liability.

Where identity itself is the question, only fingerprints settle it, and the bureau releases criminal history record information under Title 11, chapter 85 on receipt of the subject's fingerprints and the fee the Superintendent sets, a service the State Police background check page describes, with enrolment centres in Dover and Georgetown, partner locations statewide and a certified Delaware criminal history costing $72 and a combined state and federal history $85.

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Reading a Delaware result

A record on the central registry is a Tier 2 or Tier 3 offender, moderate or high risk in the court's classification, with the term running 25 years for Tier 2; a Tier 1 offender is registered for 15 years but never shown, so the website's silence proves only that the person is not moderate or high risk. An address missing from the map may simply be one the system could not geocode, and a registration made today may take up to 24 hours to appear there, which is why the offender search is the complete list.

The State Bureau of Identification in Dover holds the registration forms and the record, the Superior Court assigns the tier and hears the petitions, and the Board of Parole reviews a presumptive tier when an older in state registrant asks for it.

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Questions about the Delaware sex offender registry

How do I search the Delaware sex offender registry?
On the Delaware Sex Offender Central Registry website by last and first name, house number, street, development, county, city, ZIP code, workplace, state of conviction or online identifier, or on the neighborhood map, which is rebuilt nightly; separate tabs list homeless and wanted offenders.
Which Delaware offenders are on the public website?
Only those the courts have classified as moderate risk, Tier 2, or high risk, Tier 3; low risk Tier 1 offenders are required to register but are not displayed on the public site.
How long does a Delaware sex offender register?
Tier 1 offenders register for 15 years and Tier 2 offenders for 25 years, with a Tier 1 offender able to petition the Superior Court for relief after ten years if treatment was completed and no crime other than a motor vehicle offence followed.
Who decides a Delaware offender's tier?
The Superior Court, which assigns a tier to every out of state offender on a motion by the Attorney General's office; an in state offender without a tier, mainly for crimes before 1997, receives a letter with a presumptive tier and may seek a Board of Parole review.
What information does a Delaware registrant have to give?
Every alias, the date of birth, the licence or identification card, home and cell telephone numbers, the Social Security number, every residence, the employer and school with addresses and telephone numbers, every vehicle with year, make, model, colour and plate, all email addresses and internet identifiers, a passport copy, the immigration status and copies of professional licences.
How do I report an error on the Delaware registry?
Through the contacts at the foot of the registry site or its tip form, where a message is enough though contact details help; tips may be forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement agency, and knowingly giving false information is itself prosecutable.

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Delaware's other public records guides on this site are the Delaware arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, the Delaware inmate search guide for the Department of Correction, the Delaware background check guide for the State Bureau of Identification criminal history service, and the Delaware county pages for every police department and State Police troop.