Halloween is rapidly approaching and a top priority for parents is keeping their children safe. For over 20 years Taylor County has hosted a program called Lights Out to make trick-or-treating safer.
“Everyone that’s on probation who is a sex offender they have to come that night from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.,” Rikki Flores said. “Doesn’t matter what day Halloween is on they are required to be here during those hours.”
The licensed sexual offender treatment provider said approximated 140 sex offenders will be at the Taylor County Courthouse on the night of Halloween.
“We’ll do UA’s, drug testing, and a Think It Over video,” Flores said. “The main idea of it all is so they won’t be home getting these incidental contacts with children if they were to come over their house and do trick-or-treating.”
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“Please utilize the DPS websites because not every sex offender is here that night,” Flores said. “Just the ones one probation. Last time I looked the sex offender registry was up to about 5 or 600.”
Among the issues I have with Halloween laws is the notion that parents have no responsibility to protect their own children and are somehow entitled to let them roam free up and down streets during night time hours, so the parents can do whatever. And to ensure this, we round up the “monsters” (said sarcastically) force them into house arrest and label it a public safety civil regulatory scheme, so the state and local cops can pat themselves on their back and proclaim that they are the savior of children. Nevermind the fact that there is no empirical evidence showing children are preyed upon and hunted down on that one night each year, to rationalize and justify what is done to registrants and those who associate with them.
Right from the get-go I know that this little “program” is just another steaming heap of propaganda, grandstanding, glad-handing, pandering, fear-mongering garbage, glorified in the typical “yellow journalism” fashion that we’re all so familiar with… (but this is msn, afterall, so why should anyone expect anything different).
Few serious questions I’d ask these clowns if they were trying to sell this b.s. to me (although, it’s already obvious they’d just regurgitate some “frightening and high” or “underreported” rhetoric):
1) How many incidents of sexual assault/abduction or other manner of “sex crime” against children have actually occurred on Halloween (and specifically during the “trick-or-treating” hours).
2) Of these incidents (which I suspect are extremely rare), how many were perpetrated by someone on the registry.
3) How many PFRs have harmed children during Halloween in other ways (“hit and run”, domestic abuse, neglect, narcotics, etc.)
4) Given that the vast majority of sex crimes are committed by those not on any registry, and during any given day, how, exactly, does this cute little “Lights Out” operation prevent any of those offenses.
This is disgusting and I cannot believe this is happening in the so-called land of Liberty. I have to get ready for work, but I will try to find an email address to these fine people later, although trying to educate truly ignorant people is a difficult task.
Not one child will be protected by this circus performance. I’d like to see if they have any impaired driving accidents or any other crime that night, because clearly they do not know how to keep people safe.
I am actually glad they are doing this (sarcasm). This way, the children will be “safe” from registrants, and they can now “safely” go from door to door and only encounter drug dealers who may hide drugs in the candy they give out (it’s happened a LOT), burglars, released murderers, and they can “safely” cross streets where DUI drivers are, with the threat of being run over by a drunk driver. Way to go, and way to go parents to feel safe on this one day during the year!! I really thought humans could not be this ignorant and let their guards down now that the “dangerous” registrants are herded into the police station. I guess, I get surprised over and over again about the ignorance and lack of education. Embarrassing to say the least.
So this makes Halloween safer? Yet to my knowledge there has never been a trick-or-treater that went to the door of a person on the registry and was violated. I know there are zero cases of it in CA, probably the rest of the country, too. But I do know that a number of children have lost their lives on Halloween due to drunk drivers. There was a horrendous case in CA a few years back right near me where three trick-or-treaters were all hit and killed in a cross walk by a drunk driver. Has there ever been such a devastating tragedy by a person on the registry on Halloween. So wouldn’t it make more sense to ban alcohol and put a curfew on anyone that has a past DUI conviction for Halloween?
More nonsense press releases to get local media to publish what great and wonderful protectors of children occupy the offices of their local law enforcement agencies.
You know, if LE thinks trick or treating is dangerous enough to warrant this, wouldn’t it make more sense to recommend parents not send their kids trick or treating?
What’s even more frustrating is that this is put on by the so called “treatment” provider. I already knew SO counseling was a cash grabbing scam, but this solidifies my belief. The provider should be going to the county and state to tell them that there is 0 factual evidence that crimes against children are higher on Halloween than any other day.