Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act

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Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act

Long title	An Act to protect children from sexual exploitation and violent crime, to prevent child abuse and child pornography, to promote internet safety, and to honor the memory of Adam Walsh and other child crime victims.[1]
Enacted by	the 109th United States Congress
Citations
Public law	Pub.L. 109-248
Codification
Titles amended	34
U.S.C. sections created	§ 20911 et seq.
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R.4472 by Jim Sensenbrenner (R–WI) on December 8, 2005 Passed the House on March 8, 2006 (unanimous voice vote) Passed the Senate on July 20, 2006 (unanimous voice vote) Signed into law by President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006
United States Supreme Court cases
United States v. Comstock, 560 U.S. 126 (2010) Carr v. United States, 560 U.S. 438 (2010) United States v. Juvenile Male, 564 U.S. 932 (2011) Reynolds v. United States, 565 U.S. 432 (2012) United States v. Kebodeaux, 570 U.S. 387 (2013) Nichols v. United States, No. 15-5238, 578 U.S. ___ (2016) Gundy v. United States, No. 17-6086, 588 U.S. ___ (2019) Alaska v. Wright, No. 20-940, 593 U.S. ___ (2021)

This article is part of a series on the
Sex offender registries in the United States
Legislation Federal Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act Megan's Law Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act International Megan's Law to Prevent Demand for Child Sex Trafficking State Jessica's Law California Proposition 83 (2006) Other PROTECT Act of 2003 Sexually violent predator laws
Constitutionality Constitutionality of sex offender registries in the United States Supreme Court decisions Smith v. Doe Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe
Effectiveness Effectiveness of sex offender registration policies in the United States
Social issues Homelessness Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender colony Miracle Village Pervert Park Controversial designations as offender Genarlow Wilson Janet Allison Kevin Gillson
Reform activism Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws Women Against Registry - W.A.R. Movement to reform sex offender laws in the United States
v t e

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act^[1] is a federal statute that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006. The Walsh Act organizes sex offenders into three tiers according to the crime committed, and mandates that Tier 3 offenders (the most serious tier) update their whereabouts every three months with lifetime registration requirements. Tier 2 offenders must update their whereabouts every six months with 25 years of registration, and Tier 1 offenders must update their whereabouts every year with 15 years of registration. Failure to register and update information is a felony under the law. States are required to publicly disclose information of Tier 2 and Tier 3 offenders, at minimum. It also contains civil commitment provisions for sexually dangerous people.^[2]

The Act also organizes all state and territory sex offender registries into one searchable national database and instructs each state and territory to apply identical criteria for posting offender data on the internet (i.e., offender's name, address, date of birth, place of employment, photograph, etc.).^[3] The Act was named after Adam Walsh, an American boy who was abducted from a Florida shopping mall and later found murdered.

As of 2024, the Justice Department reports that 18 states, 137 tribes and 4 territories have substantially implemented requirements of the Adam Walsh Act.^[4]