Riverside County Supervisors Get Rid of 'Halloween Loophole' For Sex Offenders

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If you're a sex offender and you've already moved away from nearby schools, parks, swimming pools and libraries in Riverside County, you've got to one thing to your rather lengthy not to-do list.

When Halloween rolls around this year, you have to tear down your decorations, turn off your lights and promise not to open your front door. The supervisors of Riverside County believe that Halloween is a loophole for sex offenders, because it's the one day every year when the children come to them instead of vice-versa.

"Usually, it is the perpetrators who go after their prey. This is a situation where the prey goes to where the perpetrators of these crimes are," said Supervisor Jeff Stone, according to the Riverside Press-Enterprise. "I want to stop that."

Last night they passed emergency legislation that bars sex offenders from handing out candy to the little princesses and zombies of Riverside county. The measure passed easily with a 5-0 vote. The law applies to all unincorporated areas of Riverside County. Violations are misdemeanors, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and six months in jail. The supervisors added that they think that a law like this will eventually be passed at the state level, because it is such a massive loophole in Megan's Law.

But attention pearl-clutchers: just because the law passed STILL doesn't mean your children are safe. Supervisors ask parents to check the Megan's Law website before they take their kids trick-or-treating, and to report any violators. (But if you're really worried, chances are that if your child is abused, it will be by someone they already know, and probably a family member.)

So if you're trick-or-treating in unincorporated Riverside and you see someone doesn't have their lights on, it's probably a fair assumption that they are sex offenders. While we're jumping to conclusions and everything.

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By Emma G. Gallegos in News on October 19, 2011 11:20 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

James Bean

What if a person actually ISN'T home Halloween night? Do they get branded a pervert by their neighbors because their lights were off and no one answered the door?

Rudy101

You'll never stop with the laws. NEVER! You will ALWAYS have an issue with a person labeled a sex offender existing. You will NEVER allow an independent tribunal decide the dangerousness of people and appropriate restrictions. NEVER. It just doesn't occur to you.

That is why it is BEST to IGNORE your stupid laws by leaving the registry and doing whatever what one can do to avoid it.

See how easy it is to make Riversides's illegal law impotent??? Wasn't hard at all.

C Z

I have kept my lights off on this night for 11 years, and now this
potential child molester Jeff Stone decides that sex offenders have to
have their lights off, and an emergency measure no less, after over 200
years of Halloween celebrations in the US, TODAY it has become an
emergency in Riverside County?

There has not been ONE recorded
incident in Riverside County of a sex offender molesting a kid that was
trick or treating on her porch, not ONE.

So now I need to go buy
a bag of candy and assume the risk of a child getting injured on my
property and getting sued or turn my lights off like other years and
have everyone assume I am a sex offender and risk being harassed, shot,
stabbed, my house vandalized or burned down?

Stone is doing one
of two things: Pandering for votes and using sex offenders to stimulate
his career as a Supervisor and hoping we forget about his secession
idiocy OR he is over compensating for his own demons, ala Mark Foley and
Rep. Weiner. I bet Stone would be scared to prove to Riverside County
that he is not a undetected sex offender. The FBI says only 16% are
caught and convicted, so its a good chance that Stone himself is a child
molester, but he can prove he is not by taking the same polygraph test
given to offenders and releasing the results... if he has nothing to
hide, he has nothing to fear... but we see this all the time, people who
obsess about offenders turn out to be offenders... Are you ready to
prove you are not stimulating children too? I bet not and the people
need to ask why.

Gotta go, there is a sale on candy and I need
to upgrade my property insurance policy, Thanks Jeff, I guess I was
wrong, sex offenders do stimulate more than just themselves, I am
spending money I had not planned to spend today, so I guess they
stimulate the economy too.

I recommend that sex offenders put on a mask and go trick or treating at Stone's house this year, lol.