⚖️Understand Your Rights

Free counselors who help with rental problems, homelessness prevention, and understanding public-housing screening rules. They can explain what a housing authority is allowed to consider.

• Rental and homelessness counseling
• Help understanding public housing and voucher screening
• Referrals to local assistance

The national directory of civil legal aid offices. Civil legal aid covers housing, benefits, family, employment, and record-clearing matters — not criminal defense, but often exactly what reentry requires.

• State-by-state legal aid office directory
• Free civil legal help for people who qualify by income

State-by-state information on how criminal records affect employment and licensing, plus a directory of the organizations working on it in each state. One of the few places where the rules are laid out jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

• State-specific employment and licensing information
• Directory of state advocacy and service organizations

The federal clearinghouse for reentry research, programs, and state policy. Useful when you want to know what a state actually does, or to find funded reentry programs in your area.

• Reentry program directory
• State policy and research library

A reentry legal-advocacy organization publishing detailed, plain-language guides on housing, employment, records, and supervision. Their toolkits are among the most thorough free legal-information resources for reentry.

• Reentry legal guides and toolkits
• Legal information hotlines in some states

The Department of Justice's public site links to each state, territory, and tribal jurisdiction's own registration page — the authoritative place to read your actual reporting, address-change, travel, and verification requirements.

• Links to every jurisdiction's official registry authority
• Jurisdiction-specific registration and reporting rules

The federal office that oversees registration standards. Publishes how each jurisdiction implements SORNA — including interstate travel and relocation obligations, which are among the most commonly misunderstood requirements.

• SORNA implementation summaries by jurisdiction
• Guidance on interstate travel and relocation obligations

A national advocacy and support organization for registered individuals and their families. Provides legal-landscape updates, state affiliate contacts, and peer support groups.

• Legal and legislative updates affecting registration
• State affiliate organizations
• Peer and family support

Official plain-language explanation of when voting rights are restored, state by state. In many states people on probation or parole can vote, and in some, rights are never lost.

• State-by-state voting-rights restoration information
• Registration links