Two state bodies share the Rhode Island system, and the Parole Board's community notification page draws the line between them: the Rhode Island Sex Offender Registry is managed by the Rhode Island State Police, which runs the public website, the email alerts and the tip line from 311 Danielson Pike, North Scituate, RI 02857, (401) 764-5900 and risor@risp.gov, while the Sex Offender Community Notification Unit is a program of the Parole Board that supports the Board and the Sex Offender Board of Review and backs up the Department of Corrections, the registry, the local and state police and the public. Under the Sexual Offender Registration and Community Notification Act a conviction may require registration, community notification, or both, and the page is explicit that the two are different things: people register after an eligible sex offense conviction on or after July 1, 1992, local police distribute community notification for people living or working in Rhode Island convicted here or elsewhere of an eligible offense committed on or after July 24, 1996, because of those changing dates not everyone on the registry is subject to notification, and the registry itself is not exhaustive of all the sex offenders in the community.
How far notification goes depends on the risk level the Sex Offender Board of Review assigns, and local police then notify according to the Community Notification Guidelines the Parole Board issues, which the Board updated and approved at a public meeting on May 18, 2026. The State Police page adds a local detail worth knowing: the State Police themselves monitor the sex offenders who live in Exeter, because the town has no police department of its own. The police department that takes registrations in each city and town is on the Rhode Island county pages.
- Search: the Rhode Island State Police public registry, reached from the State Police page, where a visitor can also sign up for email alerts or submit a tip; only Level II and Level III adult offenders are posted.
- Levels: the Sex Offender Board of Review assigns Level I, low risk, with notification to law enforcement only, Level II, moderate, adding the agencies likely to encounter the offender and the website, and Level III, high, adding the individuals likely to encounter the offender.
- Registration: in person at the local police department within 24 hours of release from confinement, of sentencing without confinement, of arriving from another state or of the first day at a job or school in Rhode Island.
- Duration: annual registration for ten years from the expiration of sentence with quarterly address verification for the first two years, or annual registration with quarterly verification for life for a sexually violent predator, a recidivist or an aggravated offender; fifteen years for a juvenile.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Rhode Island's own systems: the Rhode Island Parole Board sexual offender community notification page, the Rhode Island State Police sex offender registry page, the index of chapter 37.1 of title 11 of the Rhode Island General Laws, section 11-37.1-4 on the duration and frequency of registration, section 11-37.1-6 on community notification and the Board of Review, the Parole Board sexual offender community notification guidelines, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The Board of Review and the three levels
Section 11-37.1-6 has the governor appoint eight people to the sex offender board of review, including experts in the behavior and treatment of sexual offenders by training and experience, victims' rights advocates and law enforcement representatives, with at least one qualified child and adolescent sex offender treatment specialist, all serving at the governor's pleasure until a successor is appointed. The board uses a validated risk assessment instrument where one exists, together with other material the parole board approves, to decide the level of risk an offender poses and to help the sentencing court decide whether the person is a sexually violent predator; for a juvenile the Department of Children, Youth and Families picks and administers an instrument suited to juveniles and sends the board the results; and where no accepted validated instrument exists the board uses a structured professional judgment approach, weighing the presence or absence of the commonly used static and dynamic risk variables along with everything else before it.
Six months before the release of anyone with a duty to register, or at sentencing when the person is not incarcerated, the agency with supervisory responsibility, and the Department of Corrections Interstate Compact Unit when it accepts supervision from another state, refers the person to the board with any helpful reports, and the board has thirty days from the referral to run the assessment, review the material and assign a level of risk of reoffense; where the score and the material suggest a mental abnormality or personality disorder making the person likely to commit sexually violent predatory offenses, the matter goes on toward the sexually violent predator question.
The three levels, as the Parole Board sets them out, are Level I, low risk, where notification is made to other law enforcement only and victims and case witnesses may be told on request to the police; Level II, moderate risk, where notification reaches other law enforcement and the agencies likely to encounter the offender and the adult offender is posted on the public website; and Level III, high risk, where notification reaches other law enforcement and the individuals and agencies likely to encounter the offender, with the same website posting for adults.
Before the board meets, an investigator from the notification unit contacts the offender, who may take part in a voluntary interview, give a statement or submit information; after the decision the offender is told by certified mail, and an offender given Level II or Level III has ten business days to appeal, with the directions set out in the decision letter.
Registering within 24 hours, and for how long
Section 11-37.1-4 puts the initial registration on a 24 hour clock in every situation: a person sentenced to confinement appears in person at the local law enforcement agency in the city or town of intended residence within 24 hours of release, a person convicted in Rhode Island without a term of incarceration within 24 hours of being sentenced, a person moving to Rhode Island from another jurisdiction within 24 hours of arrival, and a nonresident worker or student within 24 hours of the first day of personal attendance at the workplace or the educational institution.
After that, an ordinary registrant registers annually with the local agency for the city or town of residence for ten years from the expiration of sentence and verifies the address quarterly for the first two years of that period. A person determined to be a sexually violent predator registers in person annually for life and verifies quarterly for life, and so does a recidivist, meaning a registrant with one or more prior convictions for a listed offense, or a person convicted of an aggravated offense as the chapter defines it.
A nonresident worker or student registers annually with the agency for the city or town of employment or attendance for as long as the employment or the attendance lasts, and a person registering because of a federal, foreign or military conviction registers for the same duration and at the same frequency as if the offense had been committed in Rhode Island. A juvenile with the duty to register registers annually for fifteen years from release from confinement, placement in the community or probation and verifies quarterly through those fifteen years, except that for an adjudication under the two age based statutes the court assesses the totality of the circumstances and, where it finds the conduct criminal only because of the victim's age, may use its discretion over whether to order registration at all, for as long as it considers that necessary to protect the community and rehabilitate the juvenile.
A homeless registrant, on top of everything else, verifies presence in the community with the local agency three times a week for as long as the homelessness lasts. The registration period is tolled whenever a registrant is incarcerated, re-incarcerated for any offense or civilly committed during it.
What else the chapter covers
The chapter index shows how the rest of the system is built: section 11-37.1-3 sets who must register, 11-37.1-5 the registration requirement on release, parole or probation, 11-37.1-7 the transfer of information to the designated state law enforcement agency, 11-37.1-8 the verification of address and 11-37.1-9 the notification of local agencies when an address changes, 11-37.1-10 the penalties, 11-37.1-11 the release of information, 11-37.1-12 the rules the parole board writes for community notification, 11-37.1-13 the notification procedures for tiers two and three with 11-37.1-14 to 11-37.1-16 governing an offender's objection, the hearing and the burden of production and persuasion, 11-37.1-17 the immunity for good faith conduct, 11-37.1-18 the continuation of a prior duty to register, 11-37.1-20 the remand of a case to the board of review and 11-37.1-21 the duty of shelters and homeless shelters to tell law enforcement that a sex offender is present.
Separately, under sections 13-8-30 to 13-8-32, a person convicted of first or second degree child molestation committed on or after January 1, 1999 is subject to community supervision after the court imposed sentence expires, which the Parole Board stresses is a different thing from community notification: the Parole Board sits as the Community Supervision Board to set the conditions, and a Department of Corrections probation and parole officer supervises the person in the community as if on parole.
Getting a listing taken down
The Parole Board's answers give two routes off the public website, and only two. If an offender who is required by statute to be posted dies, and sufficient proof or suggestion of death reaches the Sex Offender Community Notification Unit or its successor, the public listing is removed; and if the period during which the offender is required to register expires, the listing is removed. Anything else about registration or the website itself, including a record thought to be wrong, goes to the State Police registry in North Scituate, which manages both.
Reading a Rhode Island result
A name on the State Police website is an adult offender the Board of Review placed at Level II or Level III, since Level I offenders are known to law enforcement alone and juveniles are not posted; the level also tells the reader how far the local police notification went, to agencies likely to encounter the person at Level II and to individuals as well at Level III. A person absent from the website may still be registered, may have been convicted of an offense committed before July 24, 1996 and so fall outside notification, may never have had a qualifying conviction, or may have reached the end of a ten year, fifteen year or lifetime term.
The local police department holds the in person registration and the quarterly verifications, the State Police hold the registry and the website, and the Parole Board's notification unit holds the leveling file and the appeal.
Questions about the Rhode Island sex offender registry
Related Rhode Island records
Rhode Island's other public records guides on this site are the Rhode Island arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, the Rhode Island inmate search guide for the Department of Corrections, the Rhode Island court records guide for the Judiciary's public portal, and the Rhode Island county pages for every police department.