Halloween is one of the biggest nights of the year. Thousands of children flood the streets going door to door asking for candy and maybe even a scare. Teens throw huge costume themed parties and go to local haunted houses. Adults decorate their houses and tend to take the festivities to extreme. Many people neglect to realize that along with all this excitement, comes quite a bit of danger. Let’s focus on having fun and staying safe this Halloween!
One of the basic themes of Halloween involves children dressing up in costumes and heading out onto the streets to knock on stranger’s doors and receive candy. We already know that Halloween brings extremely hypersexualized costumes for young girls. With such large amounts of undersupervised and oversexualized children loose on the streets, Halloween is basically like a child predator’s playground. While there are laws in place specifically for Halloween for registered sex offenders, there are still many not yet caught predators on the loose. There is also a high amount of Halloween themed fetishization and pornography that often involves children.
It is nearly too easy to poison Halloween candy and give it to a child. The results can be disastrous. One of the most famous cases of Halloween candy poisoning was years ago when Ronald O’Bryan murdered 8 year old Timothy by a cyanidelaced Pixie Stix acquired while trick or treating. Timothy died at 10 p.m. on October 31. R onald was sentenced to death for the murder and was executed by lethal injection. There are so many kids out and about on Halloween, it is important to be wary of suspicious adult figures and strange candies.
Another thing to be aware of is crime rates that spike significantly on Halloween. According to Fox, “The evening violent crime count on October 31 is about 50 percent higher than on any other date during the year, and twice the daily average. Not only was Halloween a horrible time for criminal activity, it was the worst”. A study done in Arizona showed that t heft, vandalism, and assault are the most frequently occurring crimes on Halloween. Property destruction is also really popular on Halloween. Make sure to keep your home and cars safe and secure on Halloween.
Another factor associated with Halloween is large parties. With huge parties comes the party drugs and on Halloween the drug of choice is alcohol. American people’s alcohol consumption goes off the charts on holidays like Halloween. According to The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse “Alcohol is a bigger culprit in connection with murder, rape, assault and child and spouse abuse than any illegal drug”. So this means that if there are large amounts of alcohol consumption on Halloween, there will be large amounts of those crimes being committed. Alcohol consumption combined with sexualized costumes on teenage girls, more often than not can lead to sexual assaults. Be smart and overly cautious when dealing with alcohol on Halloween.
Other common practices on Halloween involve attractions like haunted houses. Although you pay to be scared, sometimes you get more than you paid for. Haunted houses are designed to scare you to the brink of passing out. Sometimes you pass that brink. It is common for someone to faint or suffer from other injuries, like a busted nose, while in a haunted house. Edward Terebus, w ho owns a haunted house in Michi gan, had a customer who got so scared while in his haunted house that she passed out three times inside before she was able to be taken to be treated by paramedics. While it is common to faint from being overly scared, it can still be a dangerous situation. Be careful and know your limits for scariness!
Halloween is a super fun night for everyone involved. It is important to know the risks though. Look out for yourself and others. Be wary of suspicious activity and know your limits. Have fun while being safe! There is nothing wrong with being careful. Here is a site for some precautions you should follow. Happy Halloween everyone!
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