As Halloween approaches, law enforcement agencies across the country are reviving a controversial yet common plan to keep children safe.
In many cities and states, certain sex offenders will be barred from handing out candy, decorating their homes or even having their lights on while families are out trick-or-treating. In some areas, hundreds of officers will go door to door to ensure compliance while in others, offenders are required to spend the evening at the local police station.
Some of these restrictions have faced successful legal challenges from offenders who say they impose on their constitutional rights. Advocates for offenders and experts on child sex crimes say the restrictions are a solution in search of a problem.
Elizabeth J. Letourneau,
director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at the Johns Hopkins University, compared the idea of children being lured in and assaulted by sex offenders on Halloween to the myth of tainted Halloween candy.
“This is not actually doing anything to keep kids safe and it’s a distraction from things that we should be putting our time and resources into,” Letourneau said.
Some law enforcement officials behind the practice agree the actual risk to trick-or-treaters is low. But some say the restrictions, which they have been enforcing for decades, remain an important step to show the community and the offenders that they take children’s safety seriously.
“It also helps us to be able to talk about just overall Halloween safety,” said Grace Knutson, director of sex offender programs at the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. “This is a difficult time because all the rest of the year we tell children not to take candy from strangers and at Halloween, it is essentially what they end up doing.”
From lock-ins to pumpkin bans: What sex offenders can’t do on Halloween
Knutson said there are 28,000 people on Wisconsin's sex offender registry but only 6,000 of those registrants face special restrictions on Halloween. They can’t wear costumes and must remain indoors for one hour before and one hour after locally scheduled trick-or-treating times, she said. They also can’t have any decorations, a bowl of candy or even porch lights on outside their home.
Probation and parole agents team up with local law enforcement all over the state to check their homes to ensure compliance, Knutson said. Planning for the operation begins in August each year, and hundreds of officials aim to conduct between 2,000 and 2,500 home visits, focusing on offenders who have been convicted of crimes against children.
In 2025, there were 136 violations found during the sweep, Knutson said. Punishments can vary, ranging from being taken into custody to simply facing increased probation or parole restrictions.
“A lot of times it has to do with the registrant is living with somebody else, say an elderly family member, and that family member forgets or doesn’t realize that that person maybe can’t have pumpkins sitting outside,” Knutson said of the kinds of violations law enforcement typically encounters.
While violations are relatively rare, the risk to trick-or-treaters is rarer still. One example Knutson said is often mentioned is the case of Gerald Turner, who abducted and killed 9-year-old Lisa Ann French on Halloween night in 1973 while she was trick-or-treating in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Turner is currently seeking release from state custody, and a jury trial for commitment proceedings is scheduled to begin in January.
“The victimization of Lisa French in that case that I mentioned is absolutely horrific, very, very traumatic for the community as a whole, as well as the family,” she said. “But I will tell you that that is the one and only.”
Knutson stressed the home visits on Halloween were not sparked by French’s murder. Law enforcement has been conducting such compliance checks for about 18 years, she said, and officials primarily use the moment to educate the community about pedestrian safety, which is a much bigger issue for kids on Halloween.
Still, she said the home visits are worth the effort.
“I think it’s just our way of our department, division of community corrections, to show the public that we are doing everything we can to keep the community safe,” Knutson said. “We also want to send a message to the registrants that we put these restrictions on you and with that, we obviously mean that we will follow up with making sure that you’re following those restrictions as well.”
California’s annual Halloween sweep, known asOperation Boo, is even older, stretching back three and a half decades, according to Bryan Bishop, director of the state’s Division of Adult Parole Operations. In 2025, 300 parole agents helped check the homes of registered sex offenders who were on “active parole status," Bishop said.
“This year’s (Halloween is) on a Saturday night so it’s really difficult to get staff to participate when they have their own children and functions they want to attend,” he said.
California's restrictions are similar to Wisconsin’s but last even longer, from 5 p.m. on Halloween to 5 a.m. the following morning. Bishop said the rules have a “really high compliance rate,” noting that Operation Boo resulted in just 35 arrests in 2025.
“As a parent myself and as a grandparent, I take this operation very personal,” he said. “I want to protect our kids and I want to make sure our kids are aware of the risks when they’re out in the community, often times unattended.”
In some areas, local restrictions go even further than state requirements. Georgia has statewide requirements for sex offenders similar to Wisconsin and California, according to the state’s Department of Community Supervision. But in Effingham County, Sheriff Jimmy McDuffie has required every registered sex offender that is on probation to spend Halloween at his office for his nearly 25-year tenure, according to public information officer Brian Bailey.
Though Bailey said he was not aware of any incidents in which local trick-or-treaters were targeted, he said the tradition provides peace of mind for both families and offenders. If a crime does occur, he explained, "no one can blame it on them because they're here at the office."
Do these rules work? Measures face questions, legal challenges
A 2009 study of more than 67,000 sex offenses reported to law enforcement agencies in 30 states across nine years “found no significant increase in risk for nonfamilial child sexual abuse on or just prior to Halloween.” Researchers determined sex crimes against children of this kind represented less than 0.2% of all Halloween incidents with theft, vandalism, assault and burglary being far more common.
“It was precisely what we expected, that generally speaking when kids are in more highly supervised situations, they’re at much lower risk for sexual harm,” said study co-author Letourneau.
Letourneau said the laws restricting sex offender participation in Halloween activities likely stem from two popular misconceptions: that children are most at risk of sexual violence from strangers and that people who commit such crimes are highly likely to reoffend. Those risks exist, including on Halloween, but she said a sex offender targeting a trick-or-treater “would be a very rare thing."
“It’s vanishingly unlikely that this scenario plays out,” she said. “Kind of like the razors in apples thing.”
In addition to questions about the efficacy, some of the restrictions on sex offenders’ behavior on Halloween have faced legal challenges.
The issue came back into the national spotlight most recently when Thomas Sanderson, who was convicted of a sex offense in 2006, challenged a Missouri law that required offenders to post signs stating “No candy or treats at this residence” on their homes. Sanderson, who regularly created elaborate Halloween displays, was prosecuted for violating the rules in 2022 after a neighbor complained, according to his attorney Janice Bellucci.
Bellucci, the executive director of The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws, filed a lawsuit on Sanderson’s behalf, arguing the sign requirement violates free speech protections. The state countered that the signs protect children.
A federal judge ruled against Missouri and an appeals court affirmed that decision, saying there’s no evidence that children would be at risk without such postings, as long as the registered sex offender complies with the state’s other Halloween rules. Those include leaving the lights off, remaining inside and not engaging with trick-or-treaters.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 19 declined to get involved, over the objection of Justice Samuel Alito. Bellucci said Sanderson was “relieved” that the case had come to an end and would no longer create the displays.
Similar lawsuits over required signage have had success in a Simi Valley, California case handled by Bellucci as well as in Jacksonville, Florida andButts County, Georgia, according to court records. "Because there's now a precedential opinion from the Eleventh Circuit, I don't think any county in Georgia or Florida or Alabama for that matter would engage in the practice at this point," said Mark Yurachek, the attorney who represented the offenders in the Georgia case.
But such requirements persist in other states including Texas and Bellucci said she's looking to file more challenges against them.
“They’re absolutely not necessary…this Missouri state law and all the other laws that require Halloween signs are really a solution without a problem,” she said.
Contributing: Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY; Daphne Lemke, Fond du Lac Reporter
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Halloween rules target sex offenders. Do they protect kids?
