42 U.S.C. § 16915
Section 16915 · Duration of registration requirement
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 33 court decisions — leading case United States v. White (2015)
Most recently applied in 255 N.C. App. 749 - In re Bethea (October 2017)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
A sex offender shall keep the registration current for the full registration period (excluding any time the sex offender is in custody or civilly committed) unless the offender is allowed a reduction under subsection (b). The full registration period is—
(1) 15 years, if the offender is a tier I sex offender;
(2) 25 years, if the offender is a tier II sex offender; and
(3) the life of the offender, if the offender is a tier III sex offender.
(1) Clean record
The full registration period shall be reduced as described in paragraph (3) for a sex offender who maintains a clean record for the period described in paragraph (2) by—
(A) not being convicted of any offense for which imprisonment for more than 1 year may be imposed;
(B) not being convicted of any sex offense;
(C) successfully completing any periods of supervised release, probation, and parole; and
(D) successfully completing of 1 an appropriate sex offender treatment program certified by a jurisdiction or by the Attorney General.
(2) Period
In the case of—
(A) a tier I sex offender, the period during which the clean record shall be maintained is 10 years; and
(B) a tier III sex offender adjudicated delinquent for the offense which required registration in a sex registry under this title, the period during which the clean record shall be maintained is 25 years.
(3) Reduction
In the case of—
(A) a tier I sex offender, the reduction is 5 years;
(B) a tier III sex offender adjudicated delinquent, the reduction is from life to that period for which the clean record under paragraph (2) is maintained.