Policing Services

Ontario Sex Offender Registry

What is it and why do we need it?

The Ontario Sex Offender Registry is a provincial registration system for sex offenders who have been released into the community. These offenders must report to police every year. During the registration process, police enter information about these individuals into a database.

The actions of sex offenders have profound and long-lasting consequences for the victims and their communities.

Experience shows that police need enough information so they can act quickly when investigating the abduction of a child for a sexual purpose. Of those victims who were murdered:

44% were dead within one hour after the abduction
74% within three hours
91% within 24 hours.

Time is of the essence for police when monitoring sexual predators and investigating crimes committed by these offenders. The Ontario Sex Offender Registry helps police in these investigations by identifying all registered sex offenders living within a particular geographic area.

The Ontario Sex Offender Registry sends information about offenders to the National Sex Offender Registry . Federal legislation requires all provinces to send sex offender information to the national database.

Members of the public do not have access to the Ontario Sex Offender Registry. It is a database that provides police services with important information that improves their ability to investigate sex-related as well as other crimes and monitor and locate convicted sex offenders in the community.