Owings Mills-Reisterstown 2018 Halloween Sex Offender Safety Map

OWINGS MILLS-REISTERSTOWN, MD — Before kids go out trick or treating on Halloween, fall is a good time to take an inventory of who is living in your neighborhood. Owings Mills currently has 22 registered sex offenders and Reisterstown has 30 listed on the Maryland Sex Offender Registry.

You may want to avoid trick or treating at these houses and apartments on Halloween, or merely be aware of who's living in your neighborhood during the rest of the year.

Parents who want to check out the map for themselves can visit the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services website. There, you can search for sex offenders by distance from an address, county, zip code, name and school, to see if offenders are employed by or enrolled in any institutions.

The tool allows users to start their searches in an area as small as a ¼ mile radius of the listed address and goes up to the 5-mile mark. Results can be displayed in list or map form.

There are three tiers of sexual offenders in Maryland: one, two and three.

Tier three offenses have the most serious consequences and include false imprisonment of a minor, rape or attempted rape, sexual abuse of a minor and child kidnapping. Tier three offenders are on the sex offender registry for life and must register in person with a local law enforcement agency every three months.

Tier two offenses include distribution of child pornography, sexual solicitation of a minor and third-degree sex offenses. These offenders are on the sex offender registry for 25 years and must register in person with a local law enforcement agency every six months.

Tier one offenses include possession of child pornography, sex trafficking, travel with intent to engage in illicit conduct and visual surveillance with prurient intent. Tier one offenders are on the list for 15 years and must register in person with a local law enforcement agency every six months.

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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. The U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the National Sex Offender Public Website, estimates that only about 10 percent of perpetrators of child sexual abuse are strangers to the child.

The Justice Department estimates 60 percent of perpetrators are known to the child but are not family members but rather family friends, babysitters, child care providers and others, and 30 percent of child victims are abused by family members. Nearly a quarter of the abusers are under the age of 18, the department estimates.

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