Number of registered sex offenders drops in 2021
May 11, 2022

According to SafeHome.org’s Registered Sex Offenders Report — which examines data from all 50 states to determine how sex offenses are changing across the country — the number of registered offenders has declined slightly over the past year, from around 780,000 in 2021 to about 767,000 today. However, there is still a lot of work to do to end sexual abuse and assault in the U.S.

Key Findings from the report:

• Texas has the highest number of registered sex offenders, followed by California. But on a population-adjusted basis, Oregon and Montana have the highest rates in the nation.
• New Jersey has the nation’s lowest population-adjusted rate of registered sex offenders.
• Alaska has by far the highest population-adjusted rate of rape (155 cases per 100,000 residents).
• Arkansas has the nation’s highest rate of child sexual abuse reports (254 cases per 100,000 children).

The effectiveness of offender registries is a matter of debate, and in many states, the registries are not used the way they were designed, which was to protect people from habitual sex offenders. Nonetheless, they provide an important safeguard for families and others in communities, and serve as a means to measure our progress towards reducing sex crimes in our society.

For the complete list of rankings — or additional details about the number of registered sex offenders in each region — please visit www.safehome.org/data/registered-sex-offender-stats/.