States, municipalities, and parole departments have adopted policies banning known sex offenders from Halloween activities, based on the worry that there is unusual risk on these days. The existence of this risk has not been empirically established. National Incident-Base Reporting System crime report data from 1997 through 2005 were used to examine daily population adjusted rates from 67,045 nonfamilial sex crimes against children aged 12 years and less. Halloween rates were compared with expectations based on time, seasonality, and weekday periodicity. Rates did not differ from expectation, no increased rate on or just before Halloween was found, and Halloween incidents did not evidence unusual case characteristics. Findings were invariant across years, both prior to and after these policies became popular. These findings raise questions about the wisdom of diverting law enforcement resources to attend to a problem that does not appear to exist. Abstract and Full Report (pdf)
Note: this report is from 2009 – before this web site existed. Hence the late post.
I am so grateful not to have the level of deviant thought often attributed to registrants. I’m satisfied believing God weighs how others judge me in order to some day judge them the same way.
At least “a problem that does not appear to exist” is being stated. The abstract reads like it’s written by some Jr college kids; that is to say the authors uses a whole lot of words to say that all the fear and sanctions, hub-bub, etc against people forced to register are not justified because there is no evidence to show that this was ever needed. Only it’s said in a ambiguous manner because they don’t have the balls to come right out and say that operation boo and all the other foolish attention paid to those forced to register nationwide is a waste of time and $$$, and violate the constitutional guarantees of a created class of people. It’s just another piece of overthought crap.
Why is it people are unable to see the obvious truth in this manufactured problem?