Let’s Get Real About Halloween

I keep seeing twitter comments along these lines: Sex offenders hand out big candy bars, razors, drugs, & hugs, or some such nonsense.  Which is so interesting to me because I live in Phoenix, which is a pretty big damn city, one also known as the kidnap capital of the US, but I can’t think of a time I’ve ever heard of an abduction or other child sex crime on the news around Halloween. So before we all run out and buy The Offender Locator, let’s look at some facts, and CHILL THE FLOCK OUT. Instead of psyching yourself out over something that is highly UNLIKELY to happen, how about worrying about the things that are LIKELY to happen… like your child getting plowed down by a vehicle because you were too busy looking for sex offenders to look both ways before crossing the street… or some of there other tragedies that are far more likely to happen to your child.

Researchers looked at a 9-year period, saying even before increased awareness and enforcement, there were not significant spikes in sex crimes against children around Halloween.

“Reasonable parental supervision and vigilance on Halloween is appropriate, but there does not appear to be cause for alarm concerning sexual abuse risk in particular,” the study found. “Increased vigilance concerning risk should be directed to the summer months, where regular seasonal increases in sex crimes are readily seen.”

The report also notes that it could be more worthwhile to have police focusing on traffic-related incidents on Halloween over monitoring sex offenders.

“The wide net cast by Halloween laws places some degree of burden on law enforcement officers whose time would otherwise be allocated to addressing more probably dangerous events.”

via Sex crimes against children don’t increase at Halloween, says Lynn University professor | Extra Credit.

via Let’s Get Real About Halloween.