By Sandy . . . In the many years that we have been tracking Halloween, this one fits the pattern of the past few years.

There were the semi-frequent media and sheriff’s offices who were warning—and scaring—parents about people on sex offender registries grabbing trick-or-treaters, a danger that research indicates has never existed. But the days of Patch “red-dot” maps from coast to coast are gone. A couple of Patch editors in Illinois are hanging on with their “Halloween Safety Maps,” but the dots are blue now, and the articles mitigate some of the fearmongering with the inclusion of a few of the actual facts, such as, “Law enforcement officials and researchers caution that the registries can play only a limited role in preventing child sexual abuse and stress that most perpetrators are known to the child.”

For as many as possible, we responded to media articles and Facebook posts with this message:

Are you aware that any connection between persons on the registry and increased sexual harm to children at Halloween has been totally debunked.? It was an invented construct to begin with. Such a connection has never existed.

You are in a unique position to help make a difference. Instead of writing about something that has never—as far as we are able to determine–harmed any children, write about something that harms, even kills, children every Halloween.

Write about the need for law enforcement to double–and triple–down their foot patrols and crossing guards in high traffic and trick-or-treat areas rather than checking if registered individuals have their lights on. Write about the need for increased sobriety-check traffic stops on Halloween. Write about something that is a real problem, that could save lives, that could make a real difference.

We sent over a dozen emails to reporters and comments on Facebook pages. We received back one reply from a supervising editor wanting more information about our organization.

All of that is the good news.

The bad news is that a more sinister pattern also played out. Trick-or-treating children are several times more likely to be involved in an altercation with an automobile Halloween evening and night. When this occurs, the child seldom emerges unscathed.

In San Antonio, Texas, a truck driver jumped the curb and crashed into a parked vehicle, then striking a group of trick-or-treaters. According to the law enforcement officer on the scene, “By the grace of God, you know, this wasn’t a whole lot worse.” Most of the pedestrians jumped out of the way. A young child received minor injuries and was taken to the hospital with her mother who had more serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The driver fled the scene but was soon apprehended and determined to be intoxicated.

A juvenile was hit while trick-or-treating in Colonial Heights, Virginia. The child was crossing the street, where candy was seen scattered after he was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The driver stayed there.

Two young children were critically injured Halloween night while trick-or-treating in Tracey, California and remain critical Saturday morning. The driver remained at the scene.

Charlotte County, Florida, reports, “. . . a serious hit-and-run involving three people trick-or-treating on Friday night.” The injured pedestrians include a teenager and a child who were injured and taken to local hospitals. The driver fled the scene but was soon found and arrested. The area where this happened is described as a “. . . heavy trick-or-treat area.”

A trick-or-treating 13-year-old boy was struck by a car in Portland, Oregon. He sustained serious injuries, and as of the morning of November 1, his prognosis is unclear. The driver remained at the scene.

This is a mixed bag: The good news is that no children were killed outright. The bad news is that seven children were hit by automobiles while they were trick-or-treating and two or more remain in serious or critical condition.

Now the bad, bad news: Before Halloween, media and law enforcement  focus on persons required to register as the way to keep trick-or-treaters safe.

This is in spite of evidence showing zero trick-or-treating children harmed or killed by registrants. Ever. Anywhere.

Neither media nor law enforcement focus enough on a real, actual danger kids face Halloween evening and night across the nation: an increased risk of being hit by an automobile and injured or killed. Some media articles do. Fewer law enforcement offices do.

If this were an equation, in most states it would look like this:

Definite risk of children being harmed Halloween night = <10% allotment of resources; zero risk (based on past 40 years) of children being harmed Halloween night = >75% allotment of resources.

As an ironic sidenote, just as the message is everywhere that there is no connection between persons on sex offender registries and increased risk of sexual harm to children at Halloween, a legislator in Kentucky is proposing that persons on the state registry be forbidden from participating in Halloween activities. Whenever I hear nonsense like this, I remember a question I was asked a long time ago by a registrant. “Why is it that it is fine if I bob for apples with my grandchildren on October 30^th and on November 1^st,” he asked, “but if I do it on October 31^st, I am breaking the law and could go to prison?”

I could not answer his question then, and I cannot answer it now.

The post A good news, bad news Halloween first appeared on NARSOL.

By Sandy . . . Follow the money trail. How often has this advice been given, and how often has the heeding of it led to the unraveling of an enigma or a crime.

The sex offender industry is both an enigma and a crime, and following the money trail reveals what lies at the heart and continues to drive this occasionally well-meaning but more often self-serving and punitive complexity of businesses, individuals, and motivations that comprise the billion-dollar “sex offender” industry.

The industry is well diversified. It has three well-developed branches and a fourth smaller but highly important one.

The first, and certainly the lynch pin that holds it all together, is the appeal to the public for security and protection, especially for the need to protect children. This branch encompasses, first and foremost, the public sex offender registries; it includes varied screening, monitoring, and alert products, from systems in schools and libraries to cell phone and email alerts that notify instantly if someone on the registry enters the building or moves into the neighborhood.

The second, and even larger, branch of this industry is the management of those on the registry. Many of these are applicable to registered offenders living in the community, especially when they are on parole or probation. These include the sex offender treatment industry, GPS monitoring, and the polygraph (often used with treatment programs).  The demand for the polygraph creates a need for them  and of course for those who operate them; also, they must be manufactured and marketed. Additionally, many states found the day to day management of their sex offender databases, aka registries, too onerous and demanding for them to keep up with, and a new industry was born–the sex offender database management companies, who, for a fee, take care of all the day to day work of keeping the state online registry updated.

Law enforcement has benefited as their budgets were increased to allow the hiring of new personnel to do parole compliance checks, take care of the constantly ongoing registration process, do home visits, and check on compliance with residence restrictions. In some cases, entire sex offender task forces were created, aided by the U.S. Marshals Service. Their image and public approval are enhanced with every “sex offender” they report violated for a parole infraction or arrested for failure to register.

The management of sex offenders not yet released has spawned another group of businesses–civil commitment “hospitals.” They are extremely controversial, yet they flourish in the 20 states that have them. Among the most protested are the ones in Texas and Minnesota.

The third major branch of the sex offender industry is the role the federal government plays. Under the Adam Walsh Act, the Federal Marshals are empowered to track and capture “absconded” registrants, and they receive large grants each year with which to accomplish their work. Additionally, most investigation of electronic/computer sex crime, such as online solicitation, teen-age “sexting,” and viewing illegal images falls under federal jurisdiction. Federally financed sting operations are infamous. Some federal prisons are filled almost exclusively with those convicted of sexually related crimes.

Finally, comprising the fourth of the components of the sex offender industry are individuals who have and continue to benefit from their participation in the industry. Most notable, perhaps, is John Walsh. Certainly his involvement was thrust upon him in a way no one would ever choose, but it cannot be denied that he built a career that has spanned several decades using his son’s murder. Other parents and some victims have to lesser degrees stayed in the limelight with activism, victim advocacy organizations, and endorsement of harsher and harsher laws dealing with registrants.  One could not possibly count the number of those seeking political office or campaigning to be reelected who used some variation of, “I promise to crack down on those who sexually abuse our children.” Another type of individual who has found a way to earn a living from the sex offender industry is the “scamser.” For close to two decades, across the nation in almost every state, telephone scams targeting persons on the registry have abounded. Registrants are especially vulnerable as they often live in terror of overlooking something they should have done and being rearrested.

The offenses that require public registration run the gamut from the ridiculous to the heinous. Proper management of such a vast range of behaviors requires moving away from our “one size fits all” model and actually reading the research and listening to the experts in the field. Even more essential is focusing on the very real problem of child sexual abuse and those who really do sexually abuse children and developing appropriate programs of education and prevention. But first we need to dismantle the sex offender industry; we need to remove the financial and personal incentives from which so very many benefit.

The post The sex offender industry: follow the money first appeared on NARSOL.