Halloween is over, the costumes have been put back into storage, the pumpkins have been thrown away. With the falling of the final leaves on the trees comes the post-Halloween horror stories that are heard every year. Things like the classic razor in an apple given to an innocent child on Halloween, to a masked rapist taking a trick-or-treater at their doorstep.
Every Halloween, it seems as though many multimedia outlets come out with horror stories of Halloween’s past and parents are parents are warned about the dangers that come along with trick-or-treating. However, how true are these claims? There have been multiple studies done on many separate dangers that are posed on Halloween, and how often they actually come true.
One of the biggest concerns coming from parents each year seems to be the fact that something could be hidden in their child’s candy, like poison or a razor blade. This issue has been so popular that this tweet went viral during this past Halloween, putting a funny spin on the issue. 
In all seriousness, is this an issue that parents need to be concerned about? A study done about Halloween Sadism, published in the scientific journal Social Problems, took news stories of Halloween terrors from 1958-1983 and analyzed them to see how true these candy threats really were. The study found that most stories were exaggerated by the media, and there was barely any reports of threats that came from Halloween candy.
This report showed that most of the fear of tampered food came from media-fueled attention directed towards the issue, and that most reports of food being messed with were quickly cleared. Most cases of food tampering could be blamed on the trick-or-treaters themselves, who altered their own food for attention.
In fact, actual Halloween candy deaths have only happened twice in the United States. In both of these cases, it was not a random person hurting the child, but an adult the child already knew. The most famous case occurred in 1974, when Ronald Clark O’Bryan killed his own son by putting cyanide in a pixie stick.
So, based on the past, there is a very small risk of a child getting poisoned from Halloween candy, unless they are threatened by someone around them. Based on this evidence, most parents should not be afraid to take their child out for some good old Halloween fun.
At least, they shouldn’t be afraid of the candy. But what about the people? Another warning that parents are given each year is to be wary of sexual assaults. The common assumption is that Halloween provides a great opportunity for sex offenders to coax children into their homes. However, this assumption also proves to not be completely true.
A study done on sex offenders during Halloween proved that there is no greater risk of a child being sexually assaulted on Halloween as there is on any other day. This study, done in 2009, examined 67,307 sex offense cases that were not within the child’s family within the course of 9 years 30 different states. The study concluded that “Halloween appears to be another autumn day where sex crimes against children are concerned.” In fact, the study went on to say that tax dollars are wasted on trying to protect kids from a threat that doesn’t actually exist.
All in all, it seems as though Halloween is just another case of the media and the public forcing the government to use precautions they do not need to use. Many parents have the opportunity to x-ray their child’s Halloween candy before the child can eat it. In many states, sex offenders are forced to act differently on Halloween. In some states in America, sex offenders are forced to put a sign in their yard saying “no candy will be given out at this home.” In other places, such as Long Island, New York, sex offenders are forced to report to the court house on trick-or-treat night.
This issue seems like a smaller scale, yet still wasteful, vaccine issue. The media has caused the public to have concerns that are not true, and therefore the government must act in order to keep the citizens happy, despite scientific evidence that these threats are not true.
So what should one look out for on Halloween? The number one cause of death on Halloween is children running out in front of cars and getting run over. Perhaps instead of wasting tax dollars on untrue threats such as tampered candy and sex offenders, money should go towards more streetlights and crossing guards, to keep children safe from the real threat.
I thought this was a really creative and interesting topic for a blog post. As a child, I remember never being allowed to eat any of my halloween candy until my Mom sat down and examined every single piece of candy. And when I say examined, I really mean examined, she would literally make sure the seams were still in tact and if any of the candy was shaped differently than the others (from knocking around in my pillowcase full of candy, I’m sure) she would throw it out. Granted, my parents had been more strict than most.
Looking back, I realize how strange it was though that my parents worried so much about my candy being poisoned, but would still let me walk around our neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods with my friends and no adults and no cell phone. Not that I wish they had come with me, but there are times where I remember being nervous to walk down a driveway that might have been longer than others, or being hesitant to knock on a door that had no decorations or even sign that anyone lived there. If there was anything to be concerned about, my parents definitely should have been more worried about kidnappers or child predators.
As I was reading your post and got up to where you talked about the amount of trick-or-treaters who were grabbed from doorsteps I realized something–there are an alarming number of sexual predators who live in normal neighborhoods and seem to live normal lives. I wonder how many innocent trick or treaters have knocked on the doors of these predators? Even if the parents are aware that there is a sexual predator in the neighborhood, what are the chances that a 9 or 10 year old will know better than to knock on their door?
Here is the website where you can search for registered sex offenders by area. Maybe you’ll be surprised about the amount of people who pose a threat to the trick-or-treaters in your neighborhood…
here