Halloween Crackdown

An interesting development I have seen this year is the increased reporting of local police crackdowns on sex offenders on Halloween.  From Newsday:

In Suffolk, Probation Director John Desmond said sex offenders are required to go home directly after work and are not to be out publicly until late evening. The county currently has 825 registered sex offenders.  Ohio, Tennessee, Maryland and North Carolina have adopted similar restrictions.

The article does note that the Suffolk program is three-years old.  I'd be curious to find out how many of these programs are new this year. 

Comments

[Gritsforbreakfast]

I had a small item on that yesterday, see: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2006/10/scare-tactics-not-just-for-kids-on.html

Have you ever heard of sex offenders abducting kids trick or treating at Halloween? I couldn't identify a single one, either through Google or from the news coverage. Seems a lot like a do-nothing PR stunt.

[Ilah]

I couldn't find one, either, but I did find a few cases of people with no previous history of sex crimes abducting kids, which actually demonstrates the danger of focusing on the already-convicted. Our local news station showed parent after parent saying they "felt safer" because convicted offenders were being detained.

[eAdvocate]

The only case in history that occurred on Halloween was in 1973 the slaying of Lisa Ann French in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin by Gerald Turner known as the "Halloween Killer." Folks can read more about him here:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/?id=130295