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Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Monday, July 22, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Police find missing children:
Published on Feb 11, 2013
Police said 11-year-old Dashanique Upchurch and her 13-year-old brother, who had also been reported missing, were found Monday at a home on the 1100 block of Lewis Street.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Over 60,000 children go missing in India every year, activists point at police inaction:
Meenakshi Upreti, CNN-IBN
New Delhi: In the wake of the brutal Delhi gangrape and massive outpouring of public anger, the Justice Verma Committee was formed to look into amendments in criminal law. But it also highlighted one of the biggest problems of the country - the missing children of India. "A lakh kids go missing every year. The police must file an FIR, DM should maintain records," Justice JS Verma said.
Official records show 53,000 children were reported missing in India in 2010,59,000 missing in 2011, that is 1 child every 8 minutes. Activists claim the biggest problem is police inaction.
New Delhi: In the wake of the brutal Delhi gangrape and massive outpouring of public anger, the Justice Verma Committee was formed to look into amendments in criminal law. But it also highlighted one of the biggest problems of the country - the missing children of India. "A lakh kids go missing every year. The police must file an FIR, DM should maintain records," Justice JS Verma said.
Most missing children are victims of human trafficking and sexual violence, often with police connivance, observed the Justice Verma commission, citing the case of a minor girl who was trafficked from Jharkhand to Delhi, made to work for a year without pay and then trafficked again to Punjab.
Fortunately, the girl was rescued by an NGO, but thousands of children aren't as lucky. Kunwarjit, whose 11-year-old son went missing two years ago said nothing has been done to locate him. "Police hasn't done a thing to find him. I got a call from my son once but the police refused to act on it saying that it was a hoax call. Had they acted then, probably I would've had my son, but now I think I won't see him again," said the missing child's father.
Official records show 53,000 children were reported missing in India in 2010,59,000 missing in 2011, that is 1 child every 8 minutes. Activists claim the biggest problem is police inaction.
Delhi has the largest number of untraced children as 14 kids go missing from the city every day. Police claim most are cases of children running away willingly, rarely investigating allegations of child trafficking and sexual abuse.
Activist AR Chaurasia said, "The police shuts the case saying that the child ran away and came back on his own. My question is what did the child do for four years? Someone must have employed him, why don't they probe it?"
According to the NCRB 60,000 children go missing every year despite the fact that big states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar, along with Punjab and Jharkhand, did not provide the data for missing children. Perhaps it is time the police take strict actions to ensure no child has to suffer the same misery as her.
Official records show 53,000 children were reported missing in India in 2010,
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Parents of missing Ind. college student make plea on TV:
USA TODAY
Robert and Charlene Spierer are still searching for information about their daughter Lauren's disappearance in June 2011 from Bloomington, Ind. They returned to Bloomington in April. (File)(Photo: Robert Scheer The Indianapolis Star)
Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News
8:38PM EST December 3. 2012 - WESTCHESTER, N.Y. -- The parents of Lauren Spierer, the Indiana University student who disappeared in June 2011, saidMonday that the family felt "stonewalled" by the lack of help from Lauren's friends.
"I'm frustrated and I'm angry at this point," said Robert Spierer, Lauren's father, on Katie Couric's syndicated talk show. "We've been stonewalled to some extent by the last people to see Lauren. Despite their claims of doing whatever they could do, the fact of the matter is that they refused to meet with us except for one of the boys. They refused to take a police polygraph, which we feel is important for a number of reasons, one of which is to help narrow down the field of people who really know what happened to her that night."
Renowned TV host and crime-victims advocate John Walsh, appearing with Spierer's parents on the ABC show, urged anyone with information about her disappearance to "have the courage" to come forward and ease her parents' suffering.
Walsh, who gained fame as host of America's Most Wanted, said he knew first hand the increasing pain and frustration the family has endured since the 20-year-old college sophomore disappeared early June 3, 2011.
Walsh's own 6-year-old son, Adam, was kidnapped and later found murdered in 1981, a crime that took nearly three decades for police to solve.
"My heart goes out to this family," Walsh said of the Spierers. "This is somebody's beautiful daughter.If you have any information, why not be forthcoming? The police are stonewalled. Somebody knows what happened to this girl.
"What they want is they want to know," he told Couric. "Somebody knows something, Katie, and somebody has to have the courage. They can remain anonymous, but just have the courage to end these people's pain."
Walsh and the Spierers were among several families with missing children who were featured on Couric's show, Katie, on an episode titled Vanished: Gone Without A Trace.
Lauren Spierer was last seen at 4:30 a.m. walking toward her off-campus apartment in Bloomington, Ind., after a night of heavy drinking with friends. The 4-foot-11, 95-pound co-ed has not been seen since.
The family created a Facebook page and hired private detectives to search for clues, and have made numerous public pleas for anyone with information to come forward.
"I don't think we discovered the right information because we don't still have Lauren," Charlene Spierer said. Asked by Couric about her own theory about what happened to her daughter, she said, "I surely don't think it was a random abduction. I think that somebody that Lauren knew was responsible for the events of that evening."
In June, one year after she went missing, a (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News investigation revealed that Spierer was so inebriated before her disappearance that she had to be carried up the street on the back of a friend.
The report, based on an extensive review of records and interviews with several people close to the case, found that Spierer had fallen so frequently that one of her eyes had begun to blacken, she had smacked her skull and lost her keys, her shoes, her cellphone and her ID.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
8 tips to keep kids safe from sexual predators:
postcrescent.com
Parents invited to community meeting prompted by child enticement incidents:
7:33 AM, Nov 29, 2012
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Jeff Jorgenson, a Menasha police-school liaison officer, keeps a watchful eye on students as they are picked up by their parents after school Tuesday at Gegan Elementary School in Menasha. / Dan Powers/The Post-Crescent.
TOWN OF MENASHA — Recent incidents in the Fox Cities involving strangers making inappropriate advances toward children have heightened parents' worries. Police are holding a public child safety meeting tonight.
Eight ways to safeguard your child:
• Children who get separated from their parents at a store should not wander around to look for them. They should be instructed to go to a checkout counter, the security office or the lost-and-found department and quickly tell the person in charge that they need help.
• Children should never get into a car or go anywhere with anyone unless their parents have told them it’s OK.
• If children are being followed on foot or in a car, they should stay away from the pursuers. Children shouldn’t get close to any car unless a parent or a trusted adult accompanies them.
• Avoid strangers who ask for directions or help in finding a lost puppy.
• If someone tries to take a child somewhere, quickly get away and yell or scream, “This man is trying to take me away,” or “This person is not my father.”
• Never go to places alone. Take a friend.
• Always ask parents’ permission to leave the yard or play area.
• Never hitchhike or try to get a ride home with anyone unless parents have given their approval.
Source: Wisconsin Clearinghousefor Missing and Exploited Childrenand Adults
The Neenah, Menasha and Town of Menasha police departments invite parents and children to attend a 6 p.m. meeting today at the Town of Menasha municipal complex. Police will provide parents with information to keep their children safe and teach children basic preventive tips.
Several child enticement incidents reported this fall recently were linked to a sex offender, but a Nov. 12 incident at a bus stop on Menasha’s east side remains unresolved.
While parents worry about their children being abducted, police say many crimes against children are not done by strangers. That’s why police now lessen the emphasis of the “stranger danger” message when they talk to children about safety.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Missing Children in Greater Manchester has risen dramatically:
Published on Monday 26 November 2012 15:04
THE number of children reported missing in Greater Manchester has risen dramatically, a charity says.
Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Railway Children shows an increase of around 270 per cent in the number of reports of missing youngsters between 2008 and 2011.
More than 2,000 children under the age of 16 were reported missing in 2011, rising from 571 in 2008. the majority choosing to flee life at home or in care.
Although the vast majority of cases ended with their being reunited with their parents or guardians, with no reports of children still missing and only three cases remaining dormant on the books of Greater Manchester Police in 2011, the charity says it is greatly concerned about the spike in cases.
Railway Children also believes the reported cases may be just the tip of the iceberg, with figures from the Children’s Society suggesting as many as 100,000 children in the UK run away from home each year.
Railway Children’s head of strategy and policy Andy McCullough said: “It is alarming to see that the numbers of children reported missing in Greater Manchester has risen so significantly year on year.
“Children run away for many reasons, usually to escape things they find stressful such as problems at school or home.
“However, anecdotal research indicates that as many as two thirds of young people who run away from home are not even reported missing and may be too vulnerable and afraid to seek help from official services.
“There is a clear need for UK society to collectively take responsibility to tackle this issue at its cause.”
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Chihuahua authorities put photos of missing women, kids on tortilla packages:
By
Chihuahua authorities are taking a unique approach to bring attention to missing women and children in Juárez.
Similar to the milk carton campaign in the United States, officials across the border will begin placing the names and faces of missing women and children on packages of tortillas.
The "Disappearances in Juárez Must Disappear" campaign, begun a year ago, was launched as a means of speeding up the Alba Alert process.
The Alba Alert is similar to the Amber Alert in the United States.
Authorities said they want to be alerted as soon as possible when someone vanishes.
The state will circulate 40,000 fliers, 1,600 posters, and 800 pictures with the slogan "Disappearances in Juarez Must Disappear" with the 066 emergency telephone number to report a missing person.
During November, the fliers will be handed out in 20 neighborhoods that have been identified as high-risk areas in Juárez, officials said.
The posters will be placed on public transportation vehicles, public buildings, manufacturing plants and stores.
Officials will also give lectures and presentations to elementary, high school and college students to make them aware about the disappearances and to educate them about how to file a missing person report, the statement said.
Tortilla factories in Juárez also are part of this campaign.
The tortillas are being sold wrapped with the information on how to report a missing person to the authorities, officials from Department of Foster Development said Monday in a press release.
Chihuauahua state government delivered those wrappers to 36 tortilla factories operating in 20 high-risk neighborhoods in Juárez.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Diana Schunn: Learn from Penn State:
The Child Advocacy Center of Sedgwick County asks: What have we in Sedgwick County learned from the child sexual-abuse scandal that rocked Penn State? What do we do to prevent similar occurrences here?
There is no getting around the fact that in Sedgwick County, we have a serious problem regarding child sexual abuse. The local statistics are sobering.
From Jan. 1 through Sept. 30, 2012, the Wichita-Sedgwick County Exploited and Missing Child Unit investigated 958 reports to law enforcement of suspected abuse. Of those cases, 47 percent were sexual-abuse allegations. Many of these cases involved the possibility of multiple victims.
From July 1 through Sept. 30, 457 Sedgwick County children were forensically interviewed as part of these investigations and either received or offered services related to these abuse concerns. Of those interviewed, 43 were interviewed regarding physical abuse, 10 were witnesses to violence, and 35 were interviewed regarding neglect or endangerment. However, 369 children were interviewed to determine if they were victims in the sexual-abuse investigations.
Those statistics should frighten and outrage all of us, because, sadly, they only hint at the real situation. As is the case in every other community, an estimated 85 percent of all child abuse goes unreported.
Let’s also be clear about who the abusers are. Of those 457 children, most identified a parent as the offender, followed by (in order) other people known to the child or family; a stepparent; an unknown person; other relatives; and a parent’s boyfriend or girlfriend.
These offenders are people we work with, live near, worship with – people we know.
Penn State officials’ failure to act was callous and self-centered, but it also revealed the hesitation many of us might feel about responding when we suspect child abuse. It is troubling to believe that someone we know personally could sexually abuse a child, especially his or her own child. We forget, however, that abusers count on other adults failing to act on their suspicions.
When someone suspects child abuse, adults may hesitate and ask themselves, “What if I’m wrong?” This kind of thinking can stop that person from making a report that may be warranted. Instead we should ask ourselves, “What if I’m right?” Children count on a community of caring adults to help keep them safe.
It is also important to point out that law enforcement officers and the state social workers who investigate these cases have specialized training and years of experience in talking to children and potential suspects to determine the facts of any report of suspected child abuse. They valiantly work the front lines every day to protect children from harm. They deserve our support, and our help.
Kansas’ mandatory reporting law requires professionals whose jobs put them in frequent contact with children to report to law enforcement and the Kansas Department for Children and Families any suspicions of physical, mental or emotional abuse, neglect or sexual abuse. But all adults have a moral obligation to report suspected child abuse. Period.
That’s the mandate we need to follow. That’s the lesson I hope Penn State taught all of us.
Diana Schunn is executive director of the Child Advocacy Center of Sedgwick County.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Should police treat missing child reports with more urgency?
Police need new tools and policies to deal with reports of missing children, Gazette guest columnist Lori Handrahan wrote Saturday.
“America now produces half of the world’s child porn,” Handrahan wrote. “The volume, with a new demand for livestreaming, requires a constant and voluminous supply of children. Most parents remain blissfully ignorant until their own child has been targeted.
“Child trafficking is America’s fastest growing crime, expanding 150 percent per year. … The child porn industry is estimated to yield profits as high as $20 billion per year and is rapidly overtaking drugs as the preferred moneymaker by organized crime syndicates. Handrahan wrote. “Children are being trafficked in staggering numbers for use in America’s child porn industry.”
Handrahan referenced the cases of Des Moines paperboy Johnny Gosch and the disappearance of Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins in Evansdale in her column. “When Johnny Gosch was taken, Iowa police had a less-than-stellar response,” she said. “Noreen worked to change the law. She argued: “The police don’t wait 72 hours to go after a bank robber, why would they wait to go after child abductors?” Police practice, however, hasn’t always measured up to the new law.
“Police must be given internal support to develop new policing practices that engage parents and people who are dedicating their lives to fighting child trafficking. We must set in motion a plan of action to win the war against the child porn industry that is trafficking too many American children.”
What do you think? Do police need new tools to deal with reports of missing children? Should those reports be treated with even more urgency?
Monday, October 29, 2012
Facebook Used To Kidnap / Traffic Indonesian Girls:
Revealed: How Facebook is used to kidnap and traffic Indonesian girls
- 27 Facebook-related abductions reported this year in Indonesia
- 435 children were trafficked last year, mostly for sexual exploitation
|
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224705/Facebook-used-kidnap-traffic-Indonesian-girls.html#ixzz2AhpFpZmp
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Facebook is increasingly being used to kidnap Indonesian children who are shipped off to a life of slavery in brothels, say child protection teams.
This year alone, 27 of the 129 children reported missing to Indonesia's National Commission for Child Protection are believed to have been abducted after meeting their captors on Facebook.
One of those befriended on the social media site has also been found dead.
Facebook chat: There are growing numbers of incidents involving social media networks being used as a means for children trafficking in Indonesia
A month since a girl kidnapped from her home on the outskirts of Jakarta, was found near a bus terminal on September the 30th, there have been at least seven reports of young girls in Indonesia being abducted by people they met on Facebook.
The 14-year-old girl says she received a Facebook friend request from an older man she didn't know, so she accepted it out of curiosity.
The junior high student was quickly smitten by the man's smooth online flattery.
She didn't realise that he was one of the growing number of sexual predators who had found a new way to exploit Indonesia's increasing obsession with social media.
They exchanged phone numbers, and his attention increased with rapid-fire texts. He convinced her to meet in a mall, and she found him just as charming in person.
They agreed to meet again. After telling her mom she was going to visit a sick girlfriend on her way to church choir practice, she climbed into the man's minivan near her home in Depok.
The man, a 24-year-old who called himself Yogi, drove her an hour to the town of Bogor, West Java, she told The Associated Press in an interview.
There, he locked her in a small room inside a house with at least five other girls aged 14 to 17.
She was drugged and raped repeatedly - losing her virginity in the first violent session.
After one week of torture, her captor told her she was being sold and shipped to the faraway island of Batam, known for its seedy brothels and child sex tourism that caters to men coming by boat from nearby Singapore.
She sobbed hysterically and begged to go home. She was beaten and told to shut up or die.
Although no solid data exists, police and aid groups that work on trafficking issues say it seems to be a particularly big problem in the Southeast Asian archipelago.
'Maybe Indonesia is kind of a unique country so far,' said Anjan Bose, a program officer who works on child online protection issues at ECPAT International, a nonprofit global network that helps children in 70 countries.
'Once the reports start coming in, you will know that maybe it's not one of the countries, maybe it's one of a hundred countries.
'The Internet is such a global medium. It doesn't differentiate between poor and rich. It doesn't differentiate between the economy of the country or the culture.'
Websites that track social media say Indonesia has nearly 50 million people signed up for Facebook, making it one of the world's top users after the U.S.
The capital, Jakarta, was recently named the most active Twitter city by Paris-based social media monitoring company Semiocast.
In addition, networking groups such as BlackBerry and Yahoo Messenger are wildly popular on mobile phones.
There are at least eight reported incidents this month alone in Indonesia of young girls being abducted and enslaved by men who approached them randomly on Facebook
Many young Indonesians, and their parents, are unaware of the dangers of allowing strangers to see their personal information online.
Teenagers frequently post photos and personal details such as their home address, phone number, school and hangouts without using any privacy settings - allowing anyone trolling the net to find them and learn everything about them.
'We are racing against time, and the technology frenzy over Facebook is a trend among teenagers here,' Sirait said.
'Police should move faster, or many more girls will become victims.'
The 27 Facebook-related abductions reported to the commission this year in Indonesia have already exceed 18 similar cases it received in all of 2011.
Overall, the National Task Force Against Human Trafficking said 435 children were trafficked last year, mostly for sexual exploitation.
Many who fight child sex crimes in Indonesia believe the real numbers are much higher.
Missing children are often not reported to authorities.
Stigma and shame surround sexual abuse in the world's largest Muslim-majority country, and there's a widespread belief that police will do nothing to help.
An ECPAT International report estimates that each year, 40,000 to 70,000 children are involved in trafficking, pornography or prostitution in Indonesia, a nation of 240 million where many families remain impoverished.
The U.S. State Department has also warned that more Indonesian girls are being recruited using social media networks.
In a report last year, it said traffickers have 'resorted to outright kidnapping of girls and young women for sex trafficking within the country and abroad.'
Online child sexual abuse and exploitation are common in much of Asia.
In the Philippines, kids are being forced to strip or perform sex acts on live webcams - often by their parents, who are using them as a source of income. Western men typically pay to use the sites.
'In the Philippines, this is the tip of the iceberg.
It's not only Facebook and social media, but it's also through text messages ... especially young, vulnerable people are being targeted,' said Leonarda Kling, regional representative for Terre des Hommes Netherlands, a nonprofit working on trafficking issues.
'It's all about promises. Better jobs or maybe even a nice telephone or whatever.
Young people now, you see all the glamour and glitter around you and they want to have the latest BlackBerry, the latest fashion, and it's also a way to get these things.'
Facebook says its investigators regularly review content on the site and work with authorities, including Interpol, to combat illegal activity.
It also has employees around the world tasked with cracking down on people who attempt to use the site for human trafficking.
'We take human trafficking very seriously and, while this behavior is not common on Facebook, a number of measures are in place to counter this activity,' spokesman Andrew Noyes said in an email.
He declined to give any details on Facebook's involvement in trafficking cases reported in Indonesia or elsewhere .
There are fears that the overall number of trafficked children remains grossly underestimated in Indonesia
The Depok girl, wearing a mask to hide her face as she was interviewed, said she is still shocked that the man she knew for nearly a month turned on her.
'He wanted to buy new clothes for me, and help with school payments.
He was different ... that's all,' she said.
'I have a lot of contacts through Facebook, and I've also exchanged phone numbers.
But everything has always gone fine. We were just friends.'
She said that after being kidnapped, she was given sleeping pills and was 'mostly unconscious' for her ordeal.
She said she could not escape because a man and another girl stood guard over her.
The girl said the man did not have the money for a plane ticket to Batam, and also became aware that her parents and others were relentlessly searching for her.
He ended up dumping her at a bus station, where she found help.
'I am angry and cannot accept what he did to me. ... I was raped and beaten!' said the lanky girl with shoulder-length black hair.
GLOBAL TRAFFICKING FIGURES
The United Nations estimates that 80% of persons trafficked are trafficked for sexual exploitation.
They are mostly women and children.(UN, 2003).
An estimated 120,000 women and children are trafficked into Western Europe each year. (European Commission, 2001).
800,000 people are trafficked across borders every year, of whom 80% are women and girls and some 50% are minors. (US Dept of State, 2005)
9.8m are involved in unpaid work or prostitution
The annual human trafficking industry is worth almost £20 billion
Source: Congressional research Service / UN Global report on Trafficking
An estimated 120,000 women and children are trafficked into Western Europe each year. (European Commission, 2001).
800,000 people are trafficked across borders every year, of whom 80% are women and girls and some 50% are minors. (US Dept of State, 2005)
9.8m are involved in unpaid work or prostitution
The annual human trafficking industry is worth almost £20 billion
Source: Congressional research Service / UN Global report on Trafficking
The girl's case made headlines this month when she was expelled after she tried to return to school.
Officials at the school reportedly claimed she had tarnished its image.
She has since been reinstated, but she no longer wishes to attend due to the stigma she faces.
Education Minister Mohammad Nuh also came under fire after making remarks that not all girls who report such crimes are victims:'They do it for fun, and then the girl alleges that it's rape,' he said.
His response to the criticism was that it's difficult to prove whether sexual assault allegations are 'real rapes.'
The publicity surrounding the story encouraged the parents of five other missing girls to come forward this month, saying their daughters also were victimized by people they met on Facebook.
Two more girls were freed from their captors in October and are now seeking counseling.
A man who posed as a photographer on Facebook was recently arrested and accused of kidnapping and raping three teenage girls.
Authorities say he lured them into meeting him with him by promising to make them models, and then locked them in a house.
Police found dozens of photos of naked girls on his camera and laptop.
Another case involved a 15-year-old girl from Bogor.
She was recently rescued by police after being kidnapped by her Facebook 'friend' and held at a restaurant, waiting for someone to move her to another town where she would be forced into prostitution.
In some incidents, the victims themselves ended up recruiting other young girls after being promised money or luxuries such as mobile phones or new clothes.
Police are trying to get a step ahead of the criminals.
Detective Lt. Ruth Yeni Qomariah from the Children and Women's Protection unit in Surabaya said she posed as a teenager online and busted three men who used Facebook to kidnap and rape underage girls.
She's searching for a fourth suspect.
'It has been getting worse as trafficking rings become more sophisticated and underage children are more easily targeted,' she said.
The man who abducted the Depok girl has not been found, and it's unclear what happened to the five other girls held at the house where she was raped.
'I saw they were offered by my kidnapper to many guys,' she said. 'I don't know what happened. I don't want to remember it.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224705/Facebook-used-kidnap-traffic-Indonesian-girls.html#ixzz2AhpS6QLr
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Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Traffic, not candy, at top of the fright list:
Lifestyle
October 23, 2012 at 1:00 am
By Beth J. Harpaz - Associated Press
Children should carry a flashlight or glowstick to make themselves visible while crossing streets Halloween night. (Daniel Mears / The Detroit News)
Hey, mom and dad: Halloween's not really all that scary — except when it comes to traffic safety.
Despite warnings about tainted candy, candle fires and even child abductions, real Halloween headlines are rarely about any of those things. Instead, tragedies related to the holiday typically involve trick-or-treaters hit by cars. Fortunately even those accidents are relatively few in number.
And here's something that might surprise you. A study published in 2010 in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics found that the most emergency room visits involving children around Halloween are related to sports.
The report stated nearly 18 percent of injuries on Halloween were to the finger and hand, and a third of those were lacerations, with some likely resulting from pumpkin-carving. But the report added that "a much higher proportion of injuries that occurred on Halloween were associated with sports, including football and basketball, than with knives."
Which is not to say parents should spend Oct. 31 relaxing. (Are parents ever allowed to relax?) Obviously, you need to know where kids are, monitor candy hauls, and make sure they can see out of their masks and won't trip on their costumes. But here are some statistics to provide a reality check on what's really scary about Halloween.
Fear of tainted candy
Is the danger of tainted candy urban legend or reality?
Of course you should examine goodies and make sure kids avoid treats that aren't sealed. But know this: "There isn't any case of a child killed or injured from a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick or treating," according to Joel Best, a professor at the University of Delaware who has extensively researched the subject.
Best says there have been more than 100 reports of tainted treats going back to 1958, but they include a father who poisoned his child to collect insurance money, incidents where someone gave out booby-trapped goodies but nobody was injured, and cases where kids had food allergies.
Car accidents
According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation, in four out of six years from 2006 to 2010, more pedestrians younger than 21 were killed by cars on Oct. 31 than on Oct. 30 or Nov. 1.
The numbers are small: A total of 16 deaths took place on Oct. 31 during those five years, compared to 11 on Oct. 30 and 10 on Nov. 1.
But a quick survey of news stories from 2011 suggests that traffic safety on Halloween is one area where parental vigilance is warranted. Last year, children and teenagers trick-or-treating or heading to Halloween parties were injured or killed in Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Egg Harbor Township, N.J., Port Bolivar, Texas, Lower Allen Township, Pa., and Colorado Springs, Colo. Most cases involved pedestrians hit while crossing streets or walking along roads; one case resulted in a drunken driving arrest. In another case, parents were injured along with their child.
One way to increase pedestrian visibility on Halloween: Have kids carry a flashlight or glowstick, or add glow-in-the-dark necklaces or reflective tape to costumes.
Where are your kids?
Statistically it's rare for children to be kidnapped by strangers, but it seems like there's always a case in the news. In the last few weeks, a girl was found murdered in Colorado and another child was abducted, then found, in Wyoming. So it's understandable that Halloween makes parents nervous, with kids out after dark, sometimes unaccompanied by parents, often approaching strangers to ask for candy.
Obviously parents should keep track of kids, stay in touch by cellphone with teens, and make sure younger children have adult supervision.
But perhaps you'll find this reassuring: There is no data to suggest an increase in reports of missing children on Halloween, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Fire and Devil's Night
Candles are often used for spooky decor and to light pumpkins. Be mindful if kids in billowy costumes are nearby.
But the fact is, according to Dr. John Hall, division director of the National Fire Protection Association, "there is no localized spike in reported fire injuries around Halloween."
In past years, there has been a phenomenon called "Devil's Night," especially in the Detroit area, of arson at abandoned properties. A 2005 report from the U.S. Fire Administration noted that "on Halloween, and the night before, incendiary and suspicious structure fires are about 60 percent more frequent than on an average day."
But the number of fires has been decreasing thanks to community and police patrols and other efforts. In 1984, more than 800 fires were started in Detroit during the Halloween period, compared to 169 in 2010 and 94 last year.
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