DETAINED: Georgia town planned to “lock up” all registered sex offenders on Halloween night in city hall.
By Roman McCree, Staff Writer
Gary E. Jones, mayor of Grovetown, Georgia, announced on October 22 via Facebook that all sex offenders on probation in the Grovetown area were to be housed in the Council Chambers on Halloween night. He approximated that 25-30 offenders would be overseen that night by the Community Supervision District (four officers) and an additional Grovetown Officer. Jones claimed that this action must be taken in order to ensure the safety of the Grovetown children. “Friends, I am not personally going to pick up, round up, call or go to any sex offender’s home. This is a joint effort with the GA Community Probation Services.” Jones stated. This announcement caused a commotion both locally and nationally as people begin to choose sides debating whether or not this is acceptable behavior. “[Probation Services] are the ones with the authority under Special Conditions to require that offenders report. The reporting location is Grovetown City Hall. This is legal… good grief!” Jones added. Although the law allows the town to have offenders report in at any time, many people felt that this should not be allowed.
Those who disagreed with this plan felt that there wasn’t enough reasoning to hold these offenders for the night. This plan made by Jones was a precautionary action which was not based off any previous incidents. Since there are no past events to motivate these actions people feel that there wasn’t enough reasoning to act upon the plan. Due to the lack of reasoning behind the plan, backlash broke out around the country. “As a result of the National attention that the Halloween event has created in regard to Felony Probationary Sex Offenders reporting to Grovetown City Hall… the Probation Department (GA Community Supervision) has decided not to utilize our facility as planned.” Jones reported on October 30. Although the town decided not to follow through with the initial plan, they did not disclose what the secondary plan would be. While the town’s idea did not seem to be the best fix for the issue as evidenced by the controversy raised, was the plan justified as a precaution? While a common misconception, there is not enough evidence to assume that child sex crimes occur more frequently on Halloween. In an article written by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Mark Chaffin, Jill Levenson, and Paul Stern, it was found that child sex crime rates do not spike on Halloween compared to the average rate. “Halloween rates were compared with expectations based on time, seasonality, and weekday periodicity. Rates did not differ from expectation, no increased rate on or just before Halloween was found, and Halloween incidents did not [provide] evidence [of] unusual case characteristics,” they evaluated. This evaluation is based on National Incident-Base Reporting System crime report data dating back 20 years, thus it seems irrational to divert law enforcement in dealing with a problem that doesn’t seem to exist. So why not divert our attention to an actual problem at hand on Halloween?
Compared to the flawed assumption that child sex crimes are more likely to happen on Halloween, a more pressing issue is the likelihood of children to get hit by a car on Halloween. Researchers from the University of British Columbia analyzed traffic crash data on Halloween compared to one week prior and one week after to see if the increased foot traffic that comes with trick-or-treating also increased the risk of pedestrian fatalities. The study found that for children between the ages of four and eight, there was a ten times greater likelihood of pedestrian fatality due to an accident. “Collecting ‘trick-or-treat’ candy from neighbors has been a Halloween tradition among children for over a century, and adult Halloween parties have become increasingly popular in bars and on campuses across North America,” said John Staples, the leader of the study. “We wondered if the combination of dark costumes, excitement, and alcohol made the streets more dangerous for pedestrians. Our findings suggest that it does.” Staples added. While many parents worry about the safety of their kids while trick-or-treating, the threat of tampered candy or sex offenders should not be the main thing they fret over. The resources that were exerted in Grovetown were applied to the wrong issue. Sex offenders are not as much of threat to children on Halloween as cars are.