McLean 2018 Halloween Sex Offender Safety Info

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. McLean only has one registered sex offender living there, 17 working there and one attending school there on the Virginia Sex Offender Registry. The list does not include one incarcerated person.

In Virginia, registered sex offenders are prohibited from passing out candy on Halloween—if they have restrictions related to probation supervision not allowing contact with children. That means they may not turn their porch lights on or open the door to trick-or-treaters, according to the Virginia Sex Offender Registry. On Halloween, Virginia State Police's Sex Offender Investigative Unit works with the Department of Corrections Probation and Parole to check on sex offenders under supervision.

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.

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.

Image: Patch graphic