Tennessee Reviewer's Comments

The Tennessee Sex Offender Registry includes essential components like an interactive map, but falls short in its usability. Adjusting the layout where elements overlap, adding plain explanatory text, consolidating search functions, and moving the sexual predator search within the site as opposed to using an outside service, would make the Tennessee site far more useful to the public. 

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Information Provided:  

Profiles are minimal. Only offender name, date of birth, race, sex, home address and county are included. The offense date, name and classification (sexual or violent) are displayed as well. Tennessee collects far more information, but does not make it available to the public. 

Search Functions:  

Tennessee’s Sex Offender Registry offers two ways to search: by offender and by mapping offenders around an address of concern. These two functions are not integrated: you cannot map an offender. The offender search is flexible and the results list includes small color photographs of each sex offender. The search would be better if you could search by classification—violent, sexual or all offenders. The mapping function is more complex than most of the other maps, but allows you to select the radius around your address of interest.  

Additional Site Features:  

Tennessee publishes the requirements for the Sex Offender Registry (SOR) program, sex offender laws and FAQs. 

Ease of Use:  

Tennessee’s search functions should be combined on one page. The home page displays the search by offender window and the map offender search is located in the left hand navigation—other states provide an easier interface. The mapping function is new, and Tennessee offers help on this page. Unfortunately, with a dark blue background and black type, it is nearly unreadable. A convenient drop down menu for county selection is provided in the offender search. This site would be more helpful if plain text was included to clearly explain online parameters for sex offenders’ listings rather than quoting legal code. 

Contact Information:  

Contact the Tennessee Anytime Help Desk by phone or email. 

Summary:  

Tennessee’s Sex Offender Registry offers some information on sex offenders and a mapping function to find offenders in specified areas. Profiles and mapping should be integrated to be more useful to users. And, Tennessee must repair the layout, offer plain text explanations, and incorporate a dedicated predator search if this site is to meet national standards.