Treak or Treat
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- October
- 30
As they’ve done for the last couple of years, the Westchester County Department of Probation is rounding up the county’s known sex offenders on Halloween night and requiring they attend a lecture on the evils of sex abuse.
No, it’s not a costume party. (But who knows, maybe they’ll bob for apples stuffed with razor blades.) This year’s Halloween roundup will be at the Westchester County Courthouse.
Imagine the ghoulish “fun ”—173 registered and non-registered sex offenders all in one place. Talk about night of the living dead.
County Executive Andy Spano initiated the sex offender program on the grounds that kids who go trick or treating on Halloween are easy prey for perverts offering more than candy. It’s well meaning, I suppose, but it always smelled like a publicity gambit more than anything.
After all, Halloween night is probably the one night in the year when parents actually watch their children like hawks.
In any case, I have never heard a case of a child being victimized by a trick-or-treat predator. It may be a myth like the aforementioned “razor-in-the-apple treat.”
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 2:40 pm by Phil Reisman.
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Phil Reisman is a veteran journalist and native of Westchester County. He began his career in 1977 as the head copy boy of a startup New York City newspaper that quickly went belly up. Reisman was not to blame for the newspaper's failure, or so he claims.
We need a County Commissioner on Halloween. With a large staff and subpoena power. And more chemists to test confiscated candy. And a larger public relations staff to get this information out to the public.