The U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehension, Registering, and Tracking (SMART Office) reports on the features and benefits of the SORNA Exchange Portal (SEP) in meeting one of the requirements of the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), i.e., that U.S. jurisdictions share information about sex offenders who are relocating between jurisdictions or are required to register in more than one jurisdiction.
The SEP 1) provides a common environment for all SORNA jurisdictions; 2) enables jurisdictions to share contact information—to connect with the right people about the right issues; 3) fosters cooperation among jurisdictions for a collaborative effort to improve public safety; and 4) allows jurisdictions to notify each other of relocating offenders and those required to register in more than one jurisdiction. The features of the SEP are offender relocation tasks; jurisdiction-to-jurisdiction messaging; automated, customized alerts; discussion boards; document and file sharing; jurisdiction and systemwide announcements; library of historical statutes; and jurisdiction-specific sites. To access the SEP, a person must have SMART Office approval to obtain a username and password. Users must also be approved by their respective jurisdictions.