Zachary's Law, effective January 1, 2003, required Indiana's sheriffs' departments to jointly establish the Indiana Sex and Violent Offender Registry so that the public could learn the identity, location and appearance of sex and violent offenders who live, work or study in the state, and on July 1, 2006 the Indiana Department of Correction replaced the Criminal Justice Institute as the agency that oversees registration and the registry, giving judges, police, prosecutors, parole and probation officers and community corrections officials the training and information they need on Indiana Code 11-8-8 and on the registry's use. The Department's registry hub links the registry, which searches by county, and on request the Department gives neighborhood associations information about the sex offenders living near them and instructions for using the site; its registry office sits at 302 West Washington Street, Indiana Government Center South, room E329, Indianapolis, IN 46204, at (317) 232-1232 and by fax at (317) 234-1953.
In practice the county sheriff is responsible for registering, verifying and monitoring the convicted sex and violent offenders in the county, as the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office explains, and for statewide continuity every sheriff keeps the county registry inside one centralized OffenderWatch database, so a search chooses an Indiana county, takes any local address and returns every registered offender living within a one mile radius inside that county, or finds a particular registrant by name. The Indiana Sheriffs' Association, which answers general questions at (800) 622-4779 from Avon, states the limits plainly: the sheriffs make no representation that everything on the site is accurate, since much of it comes from official records but some from the offenders themselves, who register in each county where they live, work, attend school or own property, and the information may not be used to harass or threaten a registrant or a registrant's family. A question about a particular offender, or a correction, goes to the sheriff of the county where the person lives or should be registered, and every sheriff is on the Indiana county pages.
- Search: the sheriffs' Sex and Violent Offender Registry, by county, by a local address for everyone within a mile, or by name, with a free email alert when an offender registers within a mile of the address you enter.
- Who is listed: people convicted of a sex offense or a violent offense, or adjudicated delinquent for an act that would be one, who live, work, study or own property in Indiana, for ten years after release or for life under Indiana Code 11-8-8-19.
- Deadlines: register with the sheriff within seven days of release, placement on supervision or arrival, or within 72 hours for a sexually violent predator, report any change of address, school, job or online identifiers within 72 hours, and register every seven days from a temporary residence.
- Verification: the sheriff contacts and visits every registrant at least once a year and a sexually violent predator every 90 days, and the registrant reports in person on the same schedule to register and be photographed.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Indiana's own systems: the Indiana Department of Correction sex and violent offender registry hub, the Department's make an appeal page, the Indiana registration appeal procedure for non incarcerated registrants, effective October 1, 2013, the Department's general public resources page, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office sex offender registry page, the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office sex offenders page, the Indiana Sheriffs' Association registry page, Indiana Code Title 11, chapter 8-8 on sex offender registration, sections 11-8-8-7, 11-8-8-11 to 11-8-8-14 and 11-8-8-19, Indiana Code Title 35, sections 35-42-4-11 on residency restrictions and 35-42-4-14 on school property, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Who registers, and where
Indiana Code 11-8-8-7 makes three groups register: a sex or violent offender who resides in Indiana, which means spending or intending to spend at least seven days, or part of a day counting as one, in the state during any 180 day period, or owning real property here and returning at any time; one who works or carries on a vocation here, paid or not and whether for an employer, a government or an educational benefit, for more than seven consecutive days or more than 14 days in a calendar year; and one enrolled full time or part time at any public or private school, from a secondary school to a trade school or a college.
Each registers with the local law enforcement authority of every county involved, the county sheriff everywhere except Marion County, where the chief of police of the consolidated city takes the registrations, and a person who lives in more than one county, works in another or studies in a third registers in each. A sex offender under section 11-8-8-4.5 is a person convicted of rape, criminal deviate conduct under the repealed statute, child molesting, child exploitation, vicarious sexual gratification including performing sexual conduct in the presence of a minor, child solicitation, child seduction, sexual misconduct with a minor at the felony levels, with an exception for a defendant not more than four years older than the victim in the lowest felony class, and the other offenses the section lists, and a sexually violent predator is a person so found under section 35-38-1-7.5; the violent offender half of the registry rests on section 11-8-8-5.
Registering with the sheriff: seven days, 72 hours and the yearly photograph
A sex or violent offender not committed to the Department of Correction registers no more than seven days after release from a penal facility, a secure private facility or a juvenile detention facility, transfer to a community transition program, placement on parole, probation or home detention, or arrival at the place where registration is required, whichever comes first; a sexually violent predator has 72 hours; and anyone required to register in more than one county does so in each within 72 hours of arriving there or acquiring real estate there.
The local authority makes and publishes a photograph of the registrant on the registry website at least once a year, updates the website at once on every registration and tells every other law enforcement agency in the county. Under section 11-8-8-11 a change of principal residence, or of the place where a nonresident worker or student stays in Indiana, is reported in person within 72 hours to the authority over the current address and, on a move to a new county, to the authority there, which must verify the new address within seven days of hearing from the old county; a change of principal workplace, vocation or campus is reported in person within 72 hours in the same way.
The sheriffs state the rest of the duties the same way in Jefferson County and in Vanderburgh County: within 72 hours the registrant reports every new email address, instant messaging or chat room name or social networking site used or intended, every vehicle used or intended, every physical identifier, aliases, tattoos, scars and piercings included, and any change of name, on forms submitted in person, which the Jefferson County Sheriff enters into the Indiana registry, the National Crime Information Center, the Indiana Data and Communications System and its own records system before storing the signed form securely.
The principal residence is wherever the registrant spends the most time, whether the registrant or someone else owns or leases it, and under section 11-8-8-12 a registrant living in a temporary residence, meaning transitional housing where nobody may normally stay more than 30 days in a 60 day period, registers in person within 72 hours of moving in and at least once every seven days after that, while a registrant with no principal or temporary residence reports in person to the authority of the county where the person is on the same weekly footing.
Annual or 90 day verification
Section 11-8-8-13 has the local authority over the registrant's address contact each offender in a manner the Department of Correction approves at least once a year, and each sexually violent predator at least once every 90 days, and personally visit each registrant at the listed address at least once a year, and each predator at least once every 90 days, the visits beginning seven days after the authority receives the registration notice or after the person's release or placement on supervision, whichever comes first; an offender who appears not to live at the listed address is reported at once to the department and the prosecuting attorney.
Section 11-8-8-14 puts a matching duty on the registrant: at least once every 365 days, and every 90 days for a sexually violent predator, the person reports in person to the local authority in each place of registration, registers and is photographed, bringing documentation that the registered job or school is still current. The Indiana Sheriffs' Association sums up the mandates as annual registration with law enforcement and a registry meant to increase community safety and awareness rather than to invite action against anyone, and points readers to Indiana Code chapters 11-8-8, 35-38-1-7.5, 35-42-4-10, 35-42-4-11 and 35-42-4-12 for the law itself.
Ten years or life
Under section 11-8-8-19 a sex or violent offender registers until ten years after the latest of release from a penal facility or secure juvenile detention facility in any jurisdiction, placement in a community transition or community corrections program, placement on parole or placement on probation for the offense, with the period tolled while the person is incarcerated and left unchanged by a later conviction for something else, though a later sex or violent offense or a registration violation can bring a new period.
Four groups register for life: a sexually violent predator; an offender convicted of a listed offense committed at 18 or older against a victim under 12; an offender whose listed offense proximately caused serious bodily injury or death, used force or the threat of force against the victim or the victim's family, other than sexual battery at the lowest felony level, or rendered the victim unconscious or otherwise incapable of consent; and an offender convicted of two or more unrelated listed offenses.
A person required to register in any other jurisdiction registers in Indiana for that jurisdiction's period or Indiana's, whichever is longer, and the Department of Correction, which decides the status and the period of every offender who relocates into Indiana or is convicted here without a sentence to the department, must tell an offender whose duty has expired and take the person off the public portal.
Where an offender against children may not live, and school property
Section 35-42-4-11 defines an offender against children as a registrant found to be a sexually violent predator or convicted of child molesting, child exploitation under the listed subsections, child solicitation, child seduction or kidnapping of a victim under 18 by someone other than a parent or guardian, a status that attaches by operation of law. Such an offender who knowingly resides, meaning more than three nights in any 30 day period, within 1,000 feet of school property other than a college, a youth program center, a public park or a day care center licensed under the child care law, who establishes a residence within one mile of the victim's residence, or who lives in a residence where a child care provider provides child care, commits a sex offender residency offense, a Level 6 felony.
An offender against children with fewer than two unrelated qualifying convictions may petition the court, no earlier than ten years after release from incarceration or parole, or from probation when never incarcerated, and no more than once a year, to be relieved of the status; the court may dismiss the petition or hold a hearing at which two appointed psychologists or psychiatrists with expertise in criminal behavioral disorders evaluate the person and testify, and a grant is reported to the Department of Correction.
Section 35-42-4-14 adds the school rule: a serious sex offender, meaning a sexually violent predator or a registrant convicted of child molesting, child exploitation, possession of child sex abuse material, vicarious sexual gratification, performing sexual conduct in the presence of a minor, child solicitation, child seduction or sexual misconduct with a minor, who knowingly enters school property commits a Level 6 felony, with a defense for attending worship or religious instruction at a house of worship on the property outside school activities, arriving no more than 30 minutes before and leaving within 30 minutes after.
Email alerts within a mile
The registry's free email notification, which the Vanderburgh and Jefferson County sheriffs both promote, alerts a subscriber whenever a sex offender registers with a county sheriff's office at an address in the selected county within one mile of the address on the subscription. Vanderburgh County adds a web portal that lets the public report violations, since without testimony from concerned citizens a registry violation is hard to prosecute, and its community awareness program answers at 812-421-6309.
The Department of Correction's public resources page sits beside the registry with the search for people in the Department's custody and the Indiana SAVIN alert service, which reports prison escapes by telephone or email.
Protests and appeals: how a registrant challenges an entry
Indiana adopted a formal procedure, effective October 1, 2013, for a registrant who is not in the Department's custody to challenge what the registry says. The local law enforcement authority, the chief of police of a consolidated city or the sheriff of any other county, must give the registrant written notice before entering the person into the registry, before changing, adding to or removing public information, and when it refuses a change the registrant asked for, with the full text of what will appear and a notice of the right to protest and appeal.
The registrant protests first to the local authority and then, if necessary, appeals to the Department, must raise every issue at the first opportunity or waive it, and gets a single protest and a single appeal unless circumstances change, as when a court order changes the person's criminal status; a registrant may also raise, in the first protest only, claims about the state of the registry on the day the procedure was adopted, and may escape waiver by showing incompetence, undue influence, deception or minority at the time.
A registrant identified as required to register for life may challenge that identification and assert a ten year period. The appeal page warns about the clock: when a properly filed complaint gets no response from the local official within 30 days, the registrant has seven days after that thirtieth day to ask the Department to review it, and a later request loses every issue in the complaint; a registrant barred from visiting the Department's and the registry's websites may ask the office for a paper copy of the procedure at its ordinary copying charge.
A court judgment reported on the same page holds the violent offender registration law unconstitutionally retroactive under the Indiana Constitution as applied to violent offenders who committed their offenses in Indiana before the law took effect on July 1, 2007, except where registration is a current condition of probation or parole. The Department of Correction was ordered to remove the names and all information of people classified as violent offenders on that basis, unless other convictions keep them classified as sex or violent offenders, automatically where it can tell the offense date and supervision status and otherwise by a notice to the last known address with instructions; the county sheriffs, and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department in Marion County, were ordered to stop imposing registration on that group, and the sheriffs and prosecutors were ordered not to arrest or prosecute them for failing to register as violent offenders unless another offense requires it.
Questions about the judgment go to the Department's Director of Registration and Victim Services at 302 West Washington Street, room E329, or to the plaintiffs' lawyers at the ACLU of Indiana.
Reading an Indiana result
A record on the sheriffs' registry is the county sheriff's record, drawn partly from official sources and partly from the registrant, with the photograph renewed at the yearly or 90 day in person report, the term running ten years from release or for life, and no statement about the likelihood of another offense; a name missing from a county search may be registered in another county, may have been removed under the 2007 judgment, may have passed the ten year mark or may never have belonged there, and the sheriff of the county where the person lives or should be registered is the one who knows, including whether the person is an offender against children bound by the 1,000 foot rule.
Questions about the Indiana sex offender registry
Related Indiana records
Indiana's other public records are covered on this site: the Indiana arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, the Indiana inmate search guide for the Department of Correction and county jail lookups, the Indiana court records guide for the mycase search, and the Indiana county pages for all 92 sheriffs.