Virginia supplemental sex offender registry now online

In accordance with new state legislation, the Virginia State Police has completed and posted online the Supplement to the Virginia Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minors Registry (SOR) in time for the Jan. 1, 2016, deadline. The Supplement includes information on persons who were convicted of certain sexual offenses on or after July 1, 1980, and before July 1, 1994, who are not currently on the SOR. The Supplement is available to the public through the Virginia State Police Website at http://sex-offender.vsp.virginia.gov/sor.

Referred to as “Robby’s Rule,” the 2015 Virginia General Assembly passed the legislation into law:
§ 9.1-923. Supplement to the Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minor Registry. In addition, the General Assembly amended existing § 9.1-918. Misuse of registry or supplement information; penalty. to include the additional SOR listing.

The Virginia State Police Sex Offender Investigative Unit and Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS) spent the past six months researching and verifying names and personal information required by law to be included on the Supplement.

Approximately 5,604 names are listed on the Supplement. State law requires the name of each convicted offender to include that individual’s “year of birth, the date of the conviction, the jurisdiction in which the conviction occurred, the person’s age on the date of the conviction, the offense of which he was convicted, and the Code of Virginia section of the conviction.”*

The Supplement differs from the SOR, which was established July 1, 1994, as it does not provide convicted offenders’ photographs nor are those listed “subject to the registration requirements of this chapter [Chapter 9] and are not considered persons for whom registration is required unless they are required to register pursuant to other provisions of this chapter [Chapter 9].”*

State law does permit those listed on the Supplement to “petition the circuit court in which he was convicted or the circuit court where he then resides for removal of his name and conviction information from the Supplement if the offense he was convicted of would qualify for removal from the Registry [SOR] under § 9.1-910,”* the news release stated.