PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Contact: Nathan Bupp
Phone: (716) 636-4869 x 218
E-mail: nbupp@centerforinquiry.net
Parents, Police and Politicians Again Spread Halloween Fear
October 22, 2008
AMHERST, NY (October 22, 2008)—Every Halloween, police and medical centers across the country X-ray candy collected by trick-or-treaters to check for razors, needles or pins that might have been placed there by strangers intending to hurt or kill innocent children. But no sinister foreign objects are found, no children are injured.
“Parents across America are worried over nothing,” said Benjamin Radford, managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine and author of "Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us" (Prometheus Books, 2003). “X-raying candy helps parents feel like they are protecting their children, but in fact they are simply wasting time and resources, and scaring kids needlessly.”
Despite years of research, Radford said he has found only two confirmed cases of children being killed by poisoned Halloween candy. In both of those cases, the children were killed not in a random act by strangers, but intentionally murdered by one of their parents. The “original” and best-known case was that of Ronald Clark O’Bryan, who killed his son in 1974 by lacing his Pixie Stix with cyanide in order to claim $20,000 in life insurance. No children have been poisoned or seriously injured by Halloween candy received from strangers.
“This scary tale is essentially a myth, an urban legend; there has never been a case of this happening," he said. Nonetheless, businesses wishing to self-promote continue to capitalize on the unfounded story by offering to x-ray candy.
In the past few years, Radford said, fear over sex offenders has eclipsed tainted candy as the latest Halloween bogeyman. Police across the country have warned the public of the added danger, and many states have imposed Halloween restrictions on convicted sex offenders--- in some cases jailing them overnight, preventing them from putting up Halloween decorations, and even giving offenders signs reading, “No Candy at this Residence” to be placed on their front doors. It was widely reported on Oct. 15 that the city of Annapolis, MD, has sent some 1,200 such signs to residents, with instructions to keep all lights off and not to answer their own door on Halloween night or face fines and penalties of parole violation.
Yet Radford said the concern is an overreaction to a non-existent problem. Nationwide, he said, there has never been a single reported incident of an attack by a convicted sex offender on trick-or-treating Halloween kids. Like the mythical killer candy, it simply hasn’t happened.
“Measures like these are really just public-relations efforts by police and politicians,” Radford said. “They needlessly alarm parents and kids. There’s no evidence at all that kids are any less safe from predators on Halloween. The vast majority of sex crimes on children are committed by people they know, not strangers or convicted sex offenders—and studies show that most released sex offenders do not attack again.”
Radford points out that sex offenders are very unlikely to molest costumed children at the offender’s own front door with other people around.
“While parents and children should of course be careful while trick-or-treating, they should also realize that the danger is virtually non-existent,” he said.
To interview Ben Radford, call (505) 891-3661, or e-mail bradford [at] centerforinquiry [dot] net.
Skeptical Inquirer magazine is published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), a nonprofit scientific and educational organization. CSI encourages the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view. Learn more about CSI and its official journal, The Skeptical Inquirer , at www.csicop.org/si .
