Happy Halloween

Trick or Treat safety tips


As Halloween approaches, the nights will continue to get darker, making it possible for a potential predator to strike if your child wanders out of sight. In order to make sure that the night starts and ends well, there are a few measures that can be taken to ensure this.

• If a group of young children are going door-to-door asking the well know trick or treat question, it's vital that they stay within sight of you.

• In case your child does get mixed up in the crowd, you may want to think about attaching something beforehand on them that will easily point them out.

• Instill in your children the importance of not talking to strangers.

• Maximize you and your child's safety by staying in well lit areas and by tagging along with other parents and their children.

Know your neighbors!
 
Another great resource for your family to use when determining where to trick or treat is our location search feature on http://www.familywatchdog.us/redirector.asp?page=http://www.familywatchdog.us/default.asp?newletter. You can plan out your family's route and make sure you know which houses to avoid. Use these safety tips to help ensure your family has a safe and fun Halloween.
 

Pedophiles Find New Way Of Targeting Children

Are your children safe? Internet sexual predators seem to be everywhere, and preying on your kids. Now there is a twist… A new way to lore them in.

While the Internet chat rooms remain a breeding ground, new video games such as X-Box Live seems to be providing a new playground for pedophiles. With X-Box, users can play games, and through a home Internet connection also communicate live with other players through headsets and instant messages.

According to Team X-Box, The FBI has investigated cases where sexual predators have used game systems such as Xbox 360 to target children.

“A pedophile is talking to a child, they are gaining their trust and understanding, and then tries to engage in that next level, which is taking them from the cyber world to the physical world,” said Douglas Roden, an FBI forensic examiner.

Several cases across the country have initiated with a pedophile meeting their victim through an on-line gaming system.

There are ways to protect your children from these Internet and gaming based predators. Most experts say the best way is to simply talk to your children about Internet safety and predators, then to carefully monitor their on-line activities for the warning signs:

LARGE AMOUNTS OF TIME ON-LINE: Most kids that are victims of sexual predators spend large amounts of time on-line, particularly in chat rooms.

PRESENCE OF PORNOGRAPHY: Pornography is often used in the sexual victimization of children. Sex offenders often supply their potential victims with pornography as a means of opening sexual discussions and for seduction. Child pornography may be used to show the child victim that sex between children and adults is "normal." Parents should be conscious of the fact that a child may hide the pornographic files on diskettes from them. This may be especially true if other family members use the computer.

UNRECOGNIZED TELEPHONE CALLS: While talking to a child victim on-line is a thrill for a computer-sex offender, it can be very cumbersome. Most want to talk to the children on the telephone. They often engage in "phone sex" with the children and often seek to set up an actual meeting for real sex.

CHILD TURNS OFF SCREEN WHEN YOU ENTER THE ROOM: A child looking at pornographic images or having sexually explicit conversations does not want you to see it on the screen.

YOUR CHILD BECOMES WIDTHDRAWN FROM THE FAMILY: Computer-sex offenders will work very hard at driving a wedge between a child and their family or at exploiting their relationship. They will accentuate any minor problems at home that the child might have. Children may also become withdrawn after sexual victimization

.A Full list of prevention tips is available on the FBI’s website at http://www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguidee.htm

X-Box Live is not the only gaming system that may lore your child into the web of a predator. Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 also contain some online capabilities.

Sex-offender arrested for unapproved move to home with kids

A convicted sex offender was arrested Wednesday for moving to a new address where children were living and failing to report the move to authorities.

Springer had to register as a sex offender after a misdemeanor conviction of second-degree sexual abuse, which involves a female between ages of 12 and 16.

Jasper deputies arrest sex offender trolling for victims

For the past week or more, residents of Jasper County had noticed advertisements posted at various places throughout the county offering babysitting services for $12 per weekend — but the ads solicited the babysitting services for “Females only” and requested their ages be “11 months thru 9 years".

The ads also caught the attention of investigators with the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department, who discovered the man posting the bulletins across the county was Thomas Louis Van-Hook, a convicted sex offender, who has victimized, at least, three female children in the past. But because Van-Hoot was off parole, had completed his sentencing requirements and had no stipulations to stay away from children, law enforcement officials were having a difficult time trying to find a way to charge him with a crime.

“We know where he is and we are waiting on a judge to sign the warrant,” Scott Duncan, a Jasper County Sheriff’s Department investigator told The Examiner on Friday.

The Examiner was told by a law enforcement source on Friday that a 2-year-old child may be Van-Hook’s latest victim.

“From what I was told they began investigating this after a little girl was left with him,” said The Examiner’s source. “Because she is so young she can’t make an outcry and unless he injured her the exam isn’t going to reveal anything.

“He is out there actively trolling for fresh victims. And because he has served his time, I am not sure what we can do about it until he victimizes another child. This guy is a sick bastard.”

The Examiner also obtained a copy of a letter that Van-Hook wrote in 2004 to the Procter & Gamble Company, the makers of Pampers Diapers, where he requested that the company do more to show the genital areas of children. The head of corporate security for Procter & Gamble sent the letter to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department.

Texas Attorney General Urges Parents To Protect Children From Savvy Predators

A recent increase in young cell phone users has the Texas Attorney General urging parents to protect their children from savvy predators.

Cell phones can be very convenient for parents to keep in touch with their kids during after school activities. But because of this increase in use, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott believes more needs to be done to protect children who use cell phones.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott Tuesday encouraged parents to utilize tools that can help protect young mobile telephone users from harmful content and child predators. Abbott says by implementing parental controls and learning more about the potential dangers facing cell phone users, well-informed parents can help keep their children safe.

Because of these kinds of predators, Abbott recently urged the Legislature to update Texas' sex offender registration laws. If enacted, the Attorney General's proposal would require sex offenders to register their email addresses, mobile telephone numbers, social networking aliases and other electronic identification information.

Safety strategies from Megan's Law champion Maureen Kanka

Kanka said raising her other two children, Jeremy and Jessica, became a hard lesson in how little control parents can have over children's actions.

"Those rose-colored glasses come off and you see things differently," she said.

Teaching her son about who in the neighborhood was safe made Kanka aware of the mixed signals children receive every day. Getting candy from grandpa can make an elderly man's offer in the grocery store less threatening to a child.

Melissa Buonocore, another township parent who came to the presentation, said the idea had never struck her before.

"I never really thought about all the mixed signals," she said. "It has to stop."

Kanka emphasized the importance of teaching children about private body parts without shame and to educate them about inappropriate touching.

"As silly as it sounds, you're setting a basis for them on what is good touching and what is bad touching," she said.

Keeping information as specific as possible can only help, according to Kanka.

Lopatcong PTA Vice President Karen Kosar said she was motivated to invite Kanka to speak because of what seems like a constant surge of sexual crimes in the news.

Warning over kids' holiday photos on internet

EXPERTS ARE warning parents not to put holiday snaps of their children online because they could end up in a child porn collection.

NetSafe spokesperson Lee Chisholm says authorities have found holiday photographs of children, pulled off the internet, in collections of child abuse images.

And Auckland psychologist Nathan Gaunt, an expert in online sex abuse and pornography, says some men who view child abuse images are actively trawling the internet for "child-next-door images".

"There has definitely been huge interest in `normal' images of children," Gault says. "There are people out there who do have an interest in school websites, or holiday snaps. These pictures are very real to people, so of course people who have a sexual interest in images of children find that quite interesting," he says.

He says some men will conjure up fantasies around a picture of a child, while others will find a text-based story on the internet, then go looking for a picture to match: "say, a red-headed eight-year-old".

Others, who have collections of images of a particular child being abused, will search for lookalike children on the internet to add to the fantasy.

New Law Monitors Sex Offenders On-Line

The New Year brings tougher restrictions for Georgia’s sex offenders. All 16,000 of them will have to hand over their internet passwords, screen names and e-mail addresses starting tomorrow. The new law is a big hit with some.

Michelle Rogers: “I think its great to protect young people. I work with high school and middle school students all the time and I know the internet is kind of their world a lot of times and anything that we can do to further their safety online I think is a good thing.”

Georgia joins a small band of states complying with guidelines in a 2006 federal law requiring authorities to track internet addresses of sex offenders. But the state is among the first to take the extra step of forcing its 16-thousand offenders to turn in their passwords as well.

Missouri sheriff raises funds for program to teach youngsters how to escape sex offenders

Each time legislators pass more restrictions on sex offenders, critics insist that laws alone can’t keep children safe.
Education is key, they said. Teach children how to avoid being a victim, and educate parents on the dangers.
A sheriff in central Missouri agreed with that philosophy and said he wanted to bring that training to his county. Problem was, he couldn’t afford it.
So Morgan County Sheriff Jim Petty, a career lawman, became a money pitchman of sorts, asking people to spare a dollar. Pretty soon word spread, and the juvenile division of the 26th Judicial Circuit had the funds he needed to pay for radKIDS — Resist Aggression Defensibly, a national education program that teaches kids to fight back against people trying to hurt them.
The juvenile division and the sheriff’s department will start training next year.
“Honestly, I don’t like asking people for money, but I’m passionate for this program,” Petty said.
Others in law enforcement understand the need for teaching kids how to protect themselves and convincing them that it’s OK to tell people if someone hurts them.
“They are the first line of defense for themselves,” said Sgt. Gary Kilgore, who supervises the Jackson County sex offender registry. “We need to make sure they know what they can and cannot do. That’s crucial in their safety. … Education is about the only way to get that to them.”
RadKIDS has been taught in all but a few states, officials with the program said. Trained instructors aren’t in Kansas City and in Kansas, though organizers hope to change that.
The idea is to teach elementary school children how to respond if they’re abducted or sexually attacked, or if they are bullied.
“We don’t teach children how to fight,” said Stephen Daley, founder and executive director of the nonprofit radKIDS. “We teach them to escape when someone is fighting them.”
After seeing a presentation about the program at a national conference, Petty and one of his deputies were instant believers. They remember a 9-year-old girl who fought her would-be abductor and got away.
Morgan County Deputy Mike Nienhuis, who will receive the training, said he liked how the program made kids stronger.
“The molester is never going to quit,” Nienhuis said. “You can make 50 million laws against this and it’s still going to happen. You have to educate potential victims so they know how to get out of it.”
Departments or organizations that purchase the program pay for people to be trained. In Morgan County’s case, program officials will train 20 people who then will take the message to kids.
Though the cases of strangers abducting and abusing youngsters are relatively few, many children are hurt by people they know. Petty and Nienhuis said radKIDS would give kids the strength and knowledge to handle those situations.
“You’re going to show them straight out of the chute to say no when they want to say no,” Nienhuis said. “We’ll tell them they have the power to say no.”
Petty just won re-election and now can focus on spreading the word about radKIDS.
“If I don’t do anything else as sheriff in the next four years, if I can help kids and get this program running, that’ll be a success,” Petty said.

Pedophile-free zone a good law

Rockland County Legislator Ed Day's sponsored law, Rockland's Pedophile-Free Child Safety Zone Act, is great for the safety and security of our children. This law isn't flawed. I am outraged that Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef feels that this law should be looked at - I could not care, and neither should any parent care, that an individual convicted of such a heinous crime cannot find a place to live.

Let's not attack a good law. The county government should enforce the law, not change it to place their needs over the needs of our children.

Alan J. Odze
New City

The writer is a former Chief of Police for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Bumper Stickers Helpful To Pedophiles

They are stickers that are becoming more and more popular on the back end of vehicles owned by families, and police say those stickers could be putting families at risk.

You've probably seen those little stick-figures on the back of cars representing a dad, mom and however many kids may be in that family. Police say this could be very helpful to a pedophile.

"Now you add in there the bumper sticker, where your child goes to school. They now have a geographical area of where you live, based on that single bumper sticker," says Sgt. Mark Marino of the Gilbert, AZ Police Department.

Police say many more of those stick-figure families are including the names of children and that makes matters worse. A criminal could have the first name of a young child, making it possible for that criminal to approach the child.

Halloween to be Dark Day for Sex Offenders

Perverts won't be handing out candy to your kids on Halloween, because they won't be at home.

District Attorney Susan Reed says the Adult Probation Department has called all convicted sex offenders who are on probation to a special meeting on Halloween night.

"They are going to have them all report at one place at one time and require that they attend a class during the time that kids are out on Halloween," Reed said.

Brilliant!

Ohio Supreme Court denies pedophile & wife custody

PERMANENTLY denying custody of children to their parents is an extreme move that is never made lightly or without good reason. So it was recently when the Ohio Supreme Court decided to deny a convicted pedophile and his wife permanent custody of their children.

The overriding concern of any court dealing with difficult custody cases must be the best interest of the children involved, and the state's high court did not disappoint in its ruling on a Lucas County dispute. In a 6-1 decision, the court upheld the action of Lucas County Children Services to remove two children from their home because of worries about their father.

The father and mother, whose full names were not used in the case to protect the anonymity of their children, were considered safety risks to the youngsters. A report alleging that one of the children suffered from shaken baby syndrome initially led child service agency officials to investigate the family in 2005.

While their investigation did not reveal whether either parent was responsible and did not produce evidence that the father had abused either his son, born in 2004, or a daughter, born two years earlier, it did expose troubling aspects of the father's criminal history. He had been convicted of molesting two young boys in 1991.

The man served prison time for three felonies related to the sexual abuse and completed the terms of his probation, but evidently not to the satisfaction of those who dealt with him in therapy sessions. Therapist testimony suggested the convicted pedophile just went through the motions to terminate his probation.

After the agency had removed the children from his home, it also expressed reservations about the lack of progress the father and mother had made in subsequent counseling. A majority of the justices agreed that the threat of a relapse of pedophilia with the father, and the mother's apparent inability to prevent it, was real enough to keep the children away - permanently.

Justice Paul Pfeifer, the sole dissenter, while acknowledging concern about the father offending again, objected to the couple losing custody of their children for something that only might happen.

But when serious risk to a child's safety goes beyond possible to probable, society is better to err on the side of protecting its most vulnerable members than to take a chance.

Congress Must Act Now to Stop Sex Offenders

Members of Congress often justify their actions as being “for the children.” So why is it proving so difficult to get them to fully fund the sex offender registry and notification system they created two years ago under the Adam Walsh Act?

This one really is for the children.

Click HERE to find your State Senator and ask them to pass this Act into Law for your state!

URGENT ACTION ALERT!

Left: Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Right: Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

URGENT ACTION ALERT!

On July 4th, law enforcement located over 16,000 computers in the U.S. trafficking in brutal, sadistic child pornography. On that one day, police came very close to rescuing thousands of child sexual assault victims. How? Because experts say in at least 1 out of 3 arrests for these crimes they find local victims. The foul traffic in movies and photos of children being raped and abused -- over 300,000 suspects in 2007 -- leads straight to the door of sexual predators in your community! In other words, law enforcement knows where they are and how to stop them.

Now a bipartisan bill to rescue these children is about to be killed in the Senate! The Biden-Hatch Child Rescue bill (S1738) passed the House last November, by a 415-2 vote. There's nothing controversial about this legislation: it's supported by both Republicans and Democrats. But the Senate is playing politics, which means thousands of young victims who are already located will be left in the hands of sexual predators. Tell Senate leaders to stop the politics and take action now!

Learn More

Kids Lived With Sex Offender In Filthy Home

Five children lived with a sex offender inside a filthy Price Hill home, police said.

Officers said they found human feces, trash and numerous bugs inside the Gilsey Avenue home.

James Miller, 34, a tier-two sex offender, lived with the children and their mother, police said.

Miller was previously convicted of sexually assaulting a girl. (2907.04- Unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.)

Gilbert Police have arrested a Chandler man for allegedly taking a picture of a 14-year-old girl beneath her skirt at a Wal-Mart store.

The girl's mom followed Bradley Trotter, 45, into the parking lot, located at 2501 S. Market Street, and notified police and a security guard. Trotter tried to run, but police were able to apprehend him without incident.

Authorities are concerned there could be more victims. Police said Trotter was at a Target and Wal-Mart store in Tolleson on Tuesday, and at a Mesa Wal-Mart Wednesday:
• Wal-Mart - Tolleson; July 22, 2008 - 10:45 a.m.
• Target - Tolleson; July 22, 2008 - 11:38 a.m.
• Wal-Mart - 4505 E. McKellips Road - Mesa; July 23, 2008 - 11:00 a.m.

Trotter was taken into custody without incident and booked into the 4th Avenue Jail.

Police are very concerned there may be additional victims in this case.
Anyone who may have witnessed Trotter taking someone's picture, or, who was a victim, is asked to contact the Gilbert Police Department at (480) 503-6500.

Sex offender ordered to keep warning signs on car and house

Sex offender Leroy Schad of Kansas is under a court order to keep large signs on his car that read, "Sex Offender In This Car." He has a similar sign on his house.
The 72-year-old, who has lived in the town since 1971, was originally charged with four counts of taking indecent liberties with a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy in 2005.

In March last year, he was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of aggravated indecent solicitation of a child, and the original charges were dismissed.

District Judge Ron Svaty ordered him to position the signs as part of his punishment as well as house arrest and five years probation.

Pedophile suspect found in N.J.

played Santa, painted faces
An actor who played Santa Claus and painted children's faces was arrested on child sex charges early Thursday after an international manhunt, just the second time Interpol sought the public's help to find a suspected pedophile.

Wayne Nelson Corliss, 58, was arrested Thursday morning in his Union City apartment. He is suspected of sexually abusing at least three boys from Southeast Asia thought to have been 6 to 10 years old, according to the international police agency.

Corliss is charged with producing child pornography and could face 10 to 20 years in federal prison if convicted, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark. He was to appear in court Thursday afternoon.

Colleagues know Corliss, who acted under the stage name Casey Wayne, as a witty man who liked to write and eschewed 9-to-5 jobs in favor of acting and entertainment gigs — including painting faces and playing Santa Claus at parties, said Raven Squire, the superintendent of the Union City apartment building where Corliss has lived for more than a decade.

Molesters hide behind victims' silence

Parents are urged to know signs, empower kids to talk

How could any adult in any community molest multiple children over several years, even decades, without getting caught?

"The simple answer is because nobody told," said Sylvia Victor, a Modesto marriage and family therapist who has worked for 20 years with Child Sexual Abuse Services, more commonly known as Parents United. "It happens often, too, that children will tell their parents, but (the adults) can't imagine the person doing such a thing.

"And younger children talk in code. So they may say, 'I don't want to go to Sunday school class.' The child thinks they just told the parents about the abuse, when the parents may think (their child) is just being defiant."

There are two types of child sexual abuse offenders, Victor said.

Fixated pedophiles: "Those are the ones we typically hear about in the news. They have a sexual preference for children. They don't have sexual relationships with adults. They'll have a tendency to (victimize) one gender and at a certain age range. When the child outgrows that age, (the pedophile) will drop that child and go to another one."

Regressed pedophiles: "Basically, they are people who have perfectly normal adult sexual relationships, but somewhere in their lives they get very out of control, and they'll attempt to get control by molesting, because of course, it's easy to control a child."

Fixated pedophiles, Victor said, often will have more victims "because that's their primary sexual outlet." Regressed pedophiles may have only one victim, or could even have a 20-year gap between victims.

"It could be male or female, whatever child is available," she said. This kind of pedophile responds well to treatment, she added.

How do you know if your child is a victim of sexual abuse? According to Victor, the signs of any childhood trauma, which could be something other than sexual abuse, include:

Trouble falling asleep, waking up a lot at night or having nightmares, often about being chased or killed

An increase in anger

Avoiding certain places or people

Sexual play or talk. For example, putting dolls on top of each other in a sexual way or telling parents "information they shouldn't have at that age."

Problems concentrating in school by children who had been doing well

What can parents do?

If you suspect abuse, Victor said, "get them to someone trained in sexual abuse; not all therapists are."

But the first thing parents should do, she said, "is empower their children. They need to talk to their children about good touch, bad touch."

She said information should start early. For example, she said, when she was giving her 1-year-old granddaughter and 2-year-old grandson a bath, the girl reached out and touched her brother's penis.

Victor used the teachable moment to tell her granddaughter she shouldn't be touching that personal part of her brother's body, that it belonged to him. A short time later when the girl again tried to grab him, the boy reinforced the message and said, "No. That belongs to me."

Make sure the children can politely say "no" to adults if they're feeling uncomfortable about something, such as hugging or kissing, Victor said.

"It teaches the children that they don't have to do the yucky things that adults tell them to do if they don't want to," Victor said. Otherwise, she said, children might feel as though they will get
into trouble.

"If you've empowered your children, they're going to tell someone," she said.