Pennsylvania's SORNA Compliance Efforts

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (AWA) (Pub. L. 109-248, 42 U.S.C. § 16901, et seq) authorizes the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART) to administer sex offender management grants. These grants assist state, local and tribal jurisdictions in developing and/or enhancing sex offender registration and notification programs that support substantial implementation of Title I of the AWA, known as the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). SORNA was enacted to protect the public from convicted sex offenders and offenders against children by establishing a comprehensive national system for the registration of those offenders.

The State of Pennsylvania has substantially implemented the provisions of SORNA and now working toward four goals to improve its system: (1) creating real time registration and verification training for new personnel, as well as a new roll-out of training related to system improvements, largely through the use of virtual training; (2) eliminating manual registration, verification and state reporting backlogs; (3) integrating the database of sex offender information stored by the PA Department of Corrections and Board of Probation and Parole with PA's Sex Offender Registry Tool maintained by the State Police; and (4) underwriting joint federal/state/ county/local absconder compliance task forces. ca/ncf