How Prevalent are Sex Offenders in Society?

States with the most sex offenders

• Delaware
• Oregon
• Vermont
• Michigan
• Arkansas
• Wisconsin
• Minnesota
• Florida

States with the least sex offenders

• Pennsylvania
• Maryland
• New Mexico
• Rhode Island
• North Carolina
• Connecticut
• Washington D.C.
• New Jersey

Pennsylvania is the state that has the smallest number of sex offenders relative to its population.  Even so, it has 94 offenders per 100,000 people.  Now there are two ways of looking at this.  You could say there’s only .0094% of Pennsylvania’s population that are offenders.  You also can say that there are just under 100 sex offenders in every mid-sized suburb.  What this shows is that while the number of sex offenders is small relative to the population, you probably have already been in contact with a registered sex offender at least once in your life.

Delaware is at the top of this list with a whopping 517 offenders per 100,000 people.

According to NCMEC, there are 747,408 registered sex offenders in the United States currently.  That’s more people than the city of Boston Massachusetts (645,966 - 2013 estimate.) 2.7% of those offenders will be repeat offenders even after having gone through correctional facilities.  That means that over 20,000 of currently registered individuals either already have been or soon will be repeat offenders.