The Metropolitan Police Department registry page starts with the statute: the Sex Offender Registration Act of 1999 established a sex offender registration program for the District of Columbia and authorizes the police department to release sex offender information to the public. A list of Class A and Class B registered sex offenders is provided on the website as a service to the community, and the public may review the entire sex offender registry by visiting one of the police districts or the Sex Offender Registry Unit, which moved on October 16, 2023 to 441 4th Street NW, Room 550 South, Washington, DC 20001, (202) 727-4407. Four cautions sit on the page. Address information is given at the block level only, with no specific addresses, so it may look as though several offenders live at one address when they do not. The information is information of record and may not reflect the registrant's current residence, place of employment, school or status. Unless the entry specifically says so, a listed person is not wanted by the police. And unlawful use of the information to threaten, intimidate, harass or injure a registered sex offender will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, a warning the District repeats wherever the registry appears.
Behind the police website sits a machinery of agencies that the act itself sets out, and it is unlike any state arrangement. The act authorizes the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia to create and maintain the registry; requires the Superior Court to issue orders certifying that a person is a sex offender and establishes a dispute resolution procedure for challenging a registration requirement; requires the Department of Corrections to tell the agency when a sex offender may be released to the community or a halfway house; requires the mental health service to tell the agency about leave privileges or other status changes for sex offenders in its custody; lets the agency adopt the procedures for registration, for verifying registration information and for reporting changes of address; authorizes the police department to release sex offender information and to notify agencies and people of where offenders are in the District; provides for interagency coordination; gives the District and the United States and their agencies, officials and employees immunity for acts and omissions under the act; exempts non public sex offender information from Freedom of Information Act disclosure; imposes the reporting and registration duties and the monetary and imprisonment penalties on offenders; and repealed the earlier Sex Offender Registration Act of 1996. The police districts where the complete registry can be read are on the District of Columbia pages.
- Search: the police department website for Class A and Class B registrants, with addresses at block level only; the complete Class A, B and C registry is read in person at any police district or at the Sex Offender Registry Unit.
- Who registers: a person convicted, or found not guilty by reason of insanity, of a registration required offense who lives, works or attends school in the District, the offenses being generally felony sexual assault whatever the victim's age, offenses involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of minors, and the sexual abuse of wards, patients or clients.
- Who does the work: the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency completes the initial registration and maintains the registry, the Superior Court certifies offenders and hears disputes, the corrections department and the forensic and mental health unit report releases, and the police department releases the information.
- Duration and penalty: ten years after supervision ends or after unconditional release, whichever is later, or life for the gravest offenses, sexual psychopaths and repeat offenders; a knowing violation carries up to 180 days, and up to five years with a prior failure to register anywhere.
Written by SearchSystems.net from District of Columbia's own systems: the Metropolitan Police Department sex offender registry page, the department's sex offender registration frequently asked questions, the department's page on the Sex Offender Registry Act of 1999, D.C. Code section 22-4001 on definitions, the registration offenses and the lifetime offenses, D.C. Code section 22-4002 on the registration period, D.C. Code section 22-4004 on dispute resolution in the Superior Court, D.C. Code section 22-4008 on verification by the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, D.C. Code section 22-4011 on community notification and the three classes, D.C. Code section 22-4015 on penalties, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Who must register, and who registers them
The registration questions page explains that the law requires a person convicted, or found not guilty by reason of insanity, of a registration required offense to register with the District provided the person lives, works or attends school there. Generally speaking, it says, an offense requiring registration is a felony sexual assault, regardless of the age of the victim, an offense involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of minors, or the sexual abuse of wards, patients or clients.
The initial registration is completed by the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, and other District agencies have their own duty to notify either that agency or the police department about sex offenders, among them the Department of Corrections, the forensic and mental health unit at St. Elizabeths Hospital and the District of Columbia Superior Court. One group falls outside the system entirely: convicted sex offenders who had finished their sentences and were completely out of the criminal justice system when the Sex Offender Registration Act took effect are generally not required to register, and people who committed a sex offense but were never caught or convicted are not required to register either, so neither group appears on the website or at the police stations.
The definitions in the DC Code, the department adds, will not always match the offense named in a registrant's conviction, because the person may have been convicted in another state or under a law since repealed. Section 22-4001 of the Code supplies the exact terms: a sex offender is a person who lives, resides, works or attends school in the District and committed a registration offense on or after July 11, 2000, or committed one at any time and was still in custody or under supervision for it on or after that date, and committing a registration offense means a conviction, a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity or a determination as a sexual psychopath, never a disposition that was reversed, vacated or pardoned on the ground of innocence.
The registration offenses run through every offense in the sexual abuse chapter, the former crimes of forcible rape, carnal knowledge, statutory rape, indecent acts with children, enticing a child and forcible sodomy or sodomy against a minor, lewd, indecent or obscene acts, obscenity, sexual performances using minors, incest, kidnapping and the prostitution and pandering offenses when the victim was a minor, any offense involving a sexual act or sexual contact without consent or with a minor, an assault or threat with intent to commit one, or a death caused in the course of one, attempts, conspiracies and assaults with intent to commit them, kidnapping or burglary with that intent, equivalent offenses under the law of any state, the federal government or another jurisdiction, and any other offense where the person agreed in a plea agreement to register.
The three classes, and what the website shows
Section 22-4011 defines the three classes by the registration period and the victim rather than by any risk score. Class A holds the sex offenders required to register for life under section 22-4002(b); Class B holds every other registrant whose offense was against a minor, or who registers for sexual abuse of a ward or sexual abuse of a patient or client under the sexual abuse chapter; and Class C holds everyone else. The section lets the Metropolitan Police Department notify the community both passively and actively: passive notification means making the information available for inspection or in answer to inquiries, by internet postings, by registration lists open at police stations and other locations and by answering written, oral, telephone or email requests, and the internet portion is limited by law to Class A and Class B offenders, which is why the website carries only those two classes while the paper registry at any police district carries all three.
Active notification means affirmatively telling people, through community meetings, flyers, telephone calls, door to door contacts, electronic notices, direct mailings and media releases, and it may go to any person or entity for a Class A offender, while for a Class B or Class C offender it may go only to law enforcement agencies, to organizations that serve vulnerable populations or victims of sexual offenses such as schools, day care centers, youth serving organizations, facilities for the elderly or people with impairments, shelters, churches and victims services entities, to the victims of and witnesses to the offender's crimes and their parents, guardians and family members, and to any person the department has information to believe the offender may pose a specific risk to, with that person's family.
Every piece of publicly released information must carry the warning that crimes committed against sex offenders will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, the identity of a victim is confidential, and nothing goes to the public about a person who has given notice of an intent to challenge the registration determination until the Superior Court certifies the duty, the person misses the deadline for the motion or the motion is withdrawn or dismissed.
Beyond the class, the registry gives a registrant's residence, business or school address and the offense of conviction that required the registration, with the website keeping addresses at block level.
Ten years or life
Under section 22-4002 the registration period starts when the conviction, insanity acquittal or sexual psychopath determination is entered and runs until any probation, parole, supervised release, conditional release or convalescent leave expires, or until ten years after the person was placed on such supervision or unconditionally released from a correctional facility, prison, hospital or other place of confinement, whichever comes latest; the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency may credit time the person was registered in another jurisdiction, may deny credit for any time spent detained, incarcerated, confined, civilly committed or hospitalized and for time registered before a revocation of supervision, and the period is tolled for any time the person fails to register or otherwise fails to comply.
The period runs for the person's lifetime instead for a lifetime registration offense, for a person determined to be a sexual psychopath under sections 22-3803 through 22-3811, for a person with two or more dispositions involving a felony registration offense or a registration offense against a minor, and for a person with two or more such dispositions relating to different victims. Section 22-4001 names the lifetime offenses: first or second degree sexual abuse and the former forcible rape and forcible sodomy offenses; first degree child sexual abuse, the former carnal knowledge or statutory rape and the former sodomy offense when committed against a child under 13; murder or manslaughter committed before, during or after engaging or attempting to engage in a sexual act or sexual contact, or the former rape offense; attempts, conspiracies and assaults with intent to commit any of them; and an offense under the law of any state, the federal government or another jurisdiction that involved the same conduct or conduct substantially similar to it.
The agency may suspend the duty to register while a sex offender is detained, incarcerated, confined, civilly committed or hospitalized in a secure facility, and apart from that suspension the section allows no relief from the registration requirements at all.
Verification, the dispute motion and the penalties
Section 22-4008 gives the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency the power to set how a registrant's address and other information are verified, which may mean verifying at least once a year or at shorter intervals the agency specifies, returning address verification forms, appearing in person, sitting for fingerprints and photographs and updating anything that changed since the last registration or verification, and the agency tells the Metropolitan Police Department at once when it cannot verify an address or find a registrant or when a registrant otherwise fails to comply.
The registration itself, under section 22-4007, may take the name and every alias, the date of birth, sex, race, height, weight, eye color, identifying marks, driver's license number, Social Security number, the police, corrections, FBI and NCIC numbers, the home address or expected residence and any current or expected place of work or school, a photograph and fingerprints, a detailed description of the offense with the victim impact statement, the disposition date and the sentence, and the criminal record, with the registrant reading and signing a form that the duties have been explained, including the duty to report any change of address, to register in any other state where the person moves, works or studies, and to use the Superior Court procedure for any disagreement.
That procedure sits in section 22-4004: a person who disputes the agency's determination that registration, or lifetime registration, is required, because it rests on a finding not apparent from the disposition, such as the victim's age, whether the acts were forcible or whether an out of state offense matches, or because the records themselves are wrong, gives the agency a notice of intent to seek review when first told of the determination, files a motion in the Superior Court within 30 days setting out the disputed facts with any documents and affidavits, and the court decides within 60 days, on the papers or after a hearing with appointed counsel for anyone who qualifies; a person who misses those steps may still file within three years for good cause and to prevent manifest injustice, but community notification proceeds meanwhile.
Under section 22-4015 a sex offender who knowingly violates any requirement of the chapter or of the agency's procedures faces a fine and imprisonment of not more than 180 days, or both, rising to not more than five years when the person has a prior conviction for failing to comply with a sex offender registration program in the District or anywhere else, and compliance is a mandatory condition of every sex offender's probation, parole, supervised release and conditional release.
Community notification, and its limits
Community notification, as the department defines it, means giving the community information about convicted sex offenders who have been placed on probation or parole or released from jail or prison and are now living, working or attending school there, so that people can make appropriate decisions about whether to associate with them or entrust children to them. New registrants are announced at the regular police service area, citizens advisory council and advisory neighborhood commission meetings in each district, the open registry at any police district can be checked at any time, and the website is updated when the department learns of new or additional information.
The department is equally clear about what notification is not. It has no authority to direct where a sex offender may live, work or attend school, and unless the courts have placed specific restrictions on the release, the offender has the right to live wherever the offender chooses; most offenders return to the area where they lived before the conviction, and some are released to another jurisdiction for treatment, to be near family or to work.
Nor may the community act on the information: no one should confront or harass a registrant, the act emphasizes that anyone who uses the registry to commit a crime against a sex offender will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and while a person receiving the information may pass it on at their discretion, it may not be used to commit a crime against a listed person or to engage in illegal discrimination or harassment.
The purpose, the department writes, is not to punish or stigmatize sex offenders but to provide factual information so that adults can make better informed decisions about whom they associate with and whom they trust with their children.
Reading a District of Columbia result
An entry on the police website is a Class A or Class B registrant, meaning a lifetime registrant or one whose offense was against a minor, a ward, a patient or a client, with the address shown only as a block, so two entries on the same block are not two people at one address. A person missing from the site may be a Class C registrant whose record is open at any police district, someone whose sentence ended before the 1999 act took effect, someone whose ten years have run, or someone never convicted.
The Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency holds the registration and the verification, the Superior Court certifies the duty and hears the 30 day motion against it, and the police department's Sex Offender Registry Unit at 441 4th Street NW answers at (202) 727-4407 for corrections, concerns and the whereabouts of a wanted offender.
Questions about the District of Columbia sex offender registry
Related District of Columbia records
The District's other public records guides on this site are the District of Columbia arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, the District of Columbia inmate search guide for the Department of Corrections, the District of Columbia court records guide for the Superior Court, and the District of Columbia pages for every police district.