Sex Offender Tracking
The primary goal of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's Sex Offender Tracking Team® is to provide assistance to federal, state and local law enforcement in their efforts to locate and apprehend noncompliant sex offenders by providing technical assistance and analysis. NCMEC created SOTT in 2006 to help link information about noncompliant sex offenders to unresolved cases of missing and sexually exploited children.
In September 2009 the U.S. Marshals Service established the National Sex Offender Targeting Center to provide assistance to law enforcement agencies enforcing the provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (42 U.S.C. §16911). SOTT analysts are located at the National Sex Offender Targeting Center which serves as an interagency intelligence and operations hub supporting the identification, investigation, location, apprehension and prosecution of noncompliant sex offenders.
SOTT services are only available to law enforcement agencies.
Purpose and function
Analysts in the Sex Offender Tracking Team:
- Conduct searches for noncompliant sex offenders at the request of law enforcement through public record databases, online open-source sites and other internal and external systems.
- Provide law enforcement with comprehensive analytical reports to help them locate and apprehend noncompliant sex offenders.
- Examine data regarding attempted abductions, online child sexual exploitation and child abductions for potential links with noncompliant sex offenders.
- Act as a liaison among state registries; the U.S. Marshals Service; and other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
- Produce timelines of offenders’ histories including places of residence, employment and travel.
- Conduct biannual surveys of sex offender registries and maintain a count of registered sex offenders in the United States.
- Make available the numbers of registered offenders for each state.
