Halloween and Sexual Abuse: What the Data Actually Show

It's that time of year again

Every October, the story comes back. As costumes and candy fill store aisles earlier each year, so too come the announcements about people on the sexual offense registry. They will be monitored and reminded that they may not hand out candy, ordered to stay home with the lights off, or, in Missouri, told to post "no candy" signsor, until a federal appeals court struck that requirement down in January as unconstitutional compelled speech.. The message is simple: Halloween is a night of special danger from strangers with a conviction for a sexual offense.

It is a powerful story. It is also one the research has not supported for the better part of two decades. This blog has said so before, in 2014, 2019 and 2023. It is worth saying again, because the policies keep returning even though the evidence has not changed.

What the data show

The key study is Chaffin, Levenson, Letourneau and Stern (2009), published in Sexual Abuse. Using US National Incident-Based Reporting System data from 1997 to 2005, they examined 67,045 non-familial sexual crimes against children aged 12 and under. Rates on and around Halloween did not differ from what time of year, season and day of the week would predict. Halloween incidents showed no unusual characteristics, and the pattern held both before and after Halloween restrictions became popular.

In her 2014 post for this blog, Jill Levenson set out the wider picture from more than 5 million crimes recorded in 30 states around Halloween 2005. Theft (32%), vandalism and property damage (21%), assault (19%) and burglary (9%) were the most common offenses. Sexual crimes of all types were slightly over 1% of Halloween crime, and non-familial sexual crimes against children aged 12 and under were under 0.2%.

The greatest danger to children on Halloween night is on the road. Levenson noted the Centers for Disease Control figure that children aged 5 to 14 are four times more likely to be killed as pedestrians on Halloween than on any other day. A 2019 study in JAMA Pediatrics examined 42 years of US road traffic data on exactly this question.

Why the myth persists, and why it matters

If the evidence is this consistent, why do Halloween restrictions keep appearing? Part of the answer is that they feel like common sense. By focusing public attention on a visible, named group, they give the appearance of action and look like harm prevention. ATSA's chief blogger Kieran McCartan, writing with David Prescott and Alissa Ackerman in 2018, named the problem directly: focusing on the small number of people who have been "brought to the attention of law enforcement, charged, convicted, and then mandated to register, while ignoring the larger community where sexual victimization occurs every day, is a clear indication that, as a society, we are not actually focusing on risk."

That is the heart of the problem. ATSA's 2019 Halloween statement put it plainly: 93% of sexual assaults on children are perpetrated by someone the child and family know and trust. A sign on a registrant's door does nothing about that. Worse, it tells parents that danger is out there, on someone else's doorstep, when it is far more likely to be closer to home.

Nor is this only a public perception issue. A 2022 survey of 361 parole and probation officers found about half believed Halloween laws were largely effective in preventing sexual victimization. Yet the same officers' open-ended answers pointed away from blanket approaches and toward conditions tailored to each person's needs and level of risk. That is where the evidence points too.

Kieran made the same point years earlier. As he and Katie Gotch wrote in 2014, myths about sexual abuse "help no one and actually often compromise, rather than promote, public safety." Halloween is the clearest annual example.

What would actually keep children safer

• For policymakers: replace blanket Halloween rules with supervision conditions based on individual risk, and put the police time saved into road safety on the night itself.
• For schools and educators: invest in year-round prevention education. ATSA's Policy Agenda calls for "comprehensive primary prevention education that provides age-appropriate information about consent, healthy relationships, technology, and body safety."
• For practitioners: use the season to talk with clients about realistic, individual safety plans, rather than treating one night as uniquely dangerous for everyone on the registry.
• For parents and caregivers: supervise young trick-or-treaters, be visible near roads, and keep up the year-round conversations about body safety and trusted adults that actually prevent abuse.

None of this means complacency. It means spending resources where the risk is, and being honest with the public about where that is.

Questions for the field

Seventeen years after Chaffin and colleagues published their findings, the policies they questioned are still with us. So, a few questions for all of us this October. Why does evidence that is this clear have so little pull on Halloween policy? How do we talk to parents about where risk really lies without being heard as dismissing their fears? And what would it take for a jurisdiction to be the first to drop its Halloween restrictions and say why?

Have a safe Halloween!

References

• ATSA (2019). Halloween and sexual abuse prevention: The mythical "Halloween effect". Sexual Abuse blog.
• ATSA (2025). ATSA Policy Agenda.
• Chaffin, M., Levenson, J., Letourneau, E., & Stern, P. (2009). How safe are trick-or-treaters? An analysis of child sex crime rates on Halloween. Sexual Abuse, 21(3), 363–374. doi:10.1177/1079063209340143
• Kaylor, L., Feinberg, M. K., Katsman, K., Allan, C., Greene-Colozzi, E., Johnson, D., & Jeglic, E. L. (2022). Input from the frontlines: Parole and probation officers' perceptions of policies directed at those convicted of sexual offenses. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 29(6), 900–925. doi:10.1080/13218719.2021.1995521
• Levenson, J. (2014). Halloween & sex crime: Myth vs. reality. Sexual Abuse blog.
• McCartan, K., & Gotch, K. (2014). Public engagement and changing attitudes about sexual abuse. Sexual Abuse blog.
• McCartan, K., Prescott, D. S., & Ackerman, A. (2018). Reflections on registration and its inherent paradoxes. Sexual Abuse blog.
• Prescott, D. S. (2023). Halloween and crime. Sexual Abuse blog.
• Staples, J. A., Yip, C., & Redelmeier, D. A. (2019). Pedestrian fatalities associated with Halloween in the United States. JAMA Pediatrics, 173(1), 101–103. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.4052

You Are Not Alone in This

Trust in expertise is eroding everywhere. For the people doing this work, the strongest answer has always been each other.

The work is hard enough on its own terms. Then add the environment you are doing it in.

Trust in professional expertise is eroding. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer found institutional trust falling into what researchers call the "distrust zone" across multiple sectors. Science is politicized. Evidence is contested. Practitioners in fields that touch public controversy find their clinical judgments dismissed before they are heard.

ATSA members know this firsthand. You work with people the public fears. You apply a research base the public largely does not know exists. And you do it inside systems that were often built on assumptions the evidence has since overturned. That is an exhausting professional position, and it is one most colleagues outside this field will never fully understand.

Which is exactly why the colleagues inside it matter so much.

ATSA's board recently discussed Restoring Trust in Expertise, a whitepaper on trust and professional membership published by Association Transformation. One argument in it landed with particular force. In a time of epistemic pollution, the widespread contamination of public discourse with misinformation and low-quality knowledge, professional communities are not just a benefit. They are a bulwark.

In a time of epistemic pollution, a professional community is not just a benefit. It is a bulwark.

That is what this association is in the most practical sense: a community of people who have read the same research, wrestled with the same clinical dilemmas, and chosen to keep doing this work because it matters.

What that looks like in practice

It looks like a colleague who can help you think through a difficult risk assessment, because they have done hundreds of them. It looks like a conference session where someone names a problem you thought was yours alone. It looks like knowing that when you cite an ATSA practice guideline in a treatment report, or reference a position statement in a court proceeding, you are drawing on work your peers built and vetted together.

The field's evidence base did not arrive fully formed. It was produced by ATSA members, debated at ATSA conferences, published in Sexual Abuse, and refined over decades of collective practice. The whitepaper makes a point our field should take personally: peer-reviewed publication is one of the most powerful trust-building tools a profession has. A journal is not just a repository of knowledge. It is an instrument of accountability. When the science gets attacked, that community and that record are what make it possible to defend.

The ask is simple

Stay connected. Engage with the research when it comes through. Show up at the conference. Answer when a colleague asks a question in a workgroup. Mentor someone earlier in their career who is learning, right now, what it costs to do this work with integrity.

The erosion of trust in expertise is real, and it is not going away quickly. What holds against it is not any single practitioner's credentials or confidence. It is a community that keeps producing rigorous work, supporting one another, and refusing to lower the standard.

That is what ATSA membership is for.

References

Edelman. (2024). 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer. Edelman. https://www.edelman.com/trust/trust-barometer

Pratt, E., & Chamberlain, A. (2025, July). Restoring trust in expertise: The seminal role of membership organizations in an age of skepticism [Whitepaper]. Association Transformation.

Reflections on 33 Consecutive Years of ATSA Conferences

Our annual conference is ultimately about the people who make this community what it is. Each year, we welcome first-time attendees alongside members who have been part of ATSA for decades. To our knowledge, no one has been part of that journey longer than Jill Levenson, who has attended 33 consecutive ATSA Annual Conferences. We asked Jill to reflect on what has kept her coming back year after year. Her reflections capture not only how our field has evolved, but also the relationships, shared learning, and sense of community that continue to make gathering together so meaningful.

— Amber Schroeder, Executive Director, ATSA

by Jill Levenson, Ph.D., LCSW

In 1993, a flyer arrived at our agency announcing an ATSA conference and inviting people to become members. We didn't know much about the organization or the field at the time, but we joined anyway and attended our first conference in 1994 in San Francisco. This was before online databases and instant downloads. We spent hours in university libraries searching for journal articles, making photocopies, and trying to learn everything we could about sexual offense-specific treatment.

We were reading the work of pioneers like Richard Laws, William L. Marshall, and Gene Abel. Then suddenly, there they were, standing in an elevator with us. We were completely starstruck. And the Parc 55 Hotel was the most glamorous hotel we'd ever seen! We nudged each other in disbelief. "That's the guy who wrote that article we just read!"

Faces you look forward to seeing again.

What struck us even more than their scholarship was how genuinely nice and approachable everyone was. They patiently answered questions, shared ideas, and welcomed newcomers. That spirit of openness has remained one of the defining characteristics of ATSA.

Acquaintances across the globe have become lifelong friends.

Friendships built one conference at a time.

Thirty-three consecutive conferences later, ATSA continues to be the highlight of my professional year. I come for the ever-evolving science, the thoughtful conversations, the innovative ideas, and the spirited debates that challenge us to think differently. I come to reflect and connect with colleagues who understand the complexity of this work and who continually inspire me to grow.

The conversations between sessions matter as much as the sessions.

But I also come for the friendships. Over the years, acquaintances across the globe have become lifelong friends. There is something deeply comforting about being surrounded by people who share a commitment to compassion, evidence, and preventing harm. We belong to a unique community that isn't always understood by others, but that is united by a common purpose. And of course, I also come for the good food, the fun, the chance to visit new cities, and the silly moments of camaraderie in a serious field.

Good food, good company, and the camaraderie that carries us.

Every conference is an opportunity to learn from one another, mentor the next generation, process shared experiences, and continue shifting the paradigm toward approaches that are more effective, more humane, and more grounded in science. Collectively, we advocate for public safety, prevention, healing, accountability, recovery, restoration, evidence-based practice, trauma-informed care, social justice, and human rights for all.

---

Over thirty-three consecutive conferences, ATSA has been more to me than an annual meeting. It has been my professional home, a place where I've learned, taught, questioned, laughed, led, and perhaps most importantly, found my people.

— Jill

Jill Levenson, Ph.D., LCSW
A longtime ATSA member, reflecting on 33 consecutive years of conferences.

What Would The Pitt Look Like in Our Field?

by Amber Schroeder, Executive Director, ATSA

I recently finished the latest season of The Pitt and kept thinking about why it works so well. It isn’t just the pacing or the medical crises. It’s the way the show captures human complexity. Nobody is reduced to a stereotype. The staff are competent but flawed. Patients are messy. Systems fail. Emotions leak into decision-making. Ethical questions rarely have clean answers. The show trusts the audience to sit with ambiguity instead of constantly reassuring them who’s right and who’s wrong.

While watching it, I found myself wondering: what would a show like this look like in our field? Not the sensationalized version built around monsters—the real version.

It would look like clinicians sitting in their cars for ten extra minutes before going home, trying to emotionally transition from hearing disclosures of sexual violence to helping their own kids with homework.

It would look like probation officers and therapists arguing over whether a client is destabilizing or simply terrified.

It would look like treatment teams debating a single sentence in a risk report, because everyone in the room understands that one adjective can alter the trajectory of a person’s life.

It would look like someone in our field missing a meeting because they spent the morning supporting the spouse of a former client who died by suicide—someone who would’ve been publicly reduced to “an offender,” but who was also a partner, a struggling person, and one of the few non-justice-involved clients that clinician was treating. And now the clinician is left carrying the questions this field quietly lives with every day: Did I miss something? Could the outcome have changed? How do you hold grief, accountability, risk, and humanity all at once?

That is what our field actually looks like.

A realistic show about sexual harm prevention wouldn’t revolve around dramatic courtroom speeches or brilliant profilers solving crimes. It would center on system strain, burnout, ethical ambiguity, public fear, and small victories nobody outside the field ever recognizes.

One episode would revolve entirely around whether someone should be returned to custody after a concerning disclosure. Half the team would argue community safety demands it. The other half would argue it could increase long-term risk. Nobody would fully know who was right.

Another episode would follow a therapist trying to stop a family from forcing out their adolescent child after exhibiting problematic sexual behavior, because homelessness and shame are risk factors too.

There would be no clean endings. No perfect heroes. Just people trying to reduce harm with incomplete information, inside systems that are emotionally and politically exhausting.

And importantly, it would expose something deeply uncomfortable for the public: many professionals in this field genuinely care about the people they work with. Not because they minimize harm, but because they understand prevention requires engaging with human beings—not simply condemning them. They trust the evidence showing people are capable of change, risk can be reduced, and prevention is possible even in situations the broader public often views as hopeless.

That tension is the emotional core of this work.

We hold accountability and compassion at the same time. We sit with victims and survivors, families, clinicians, incarcerated people, and communities carrying different forms of pain. We know some people remain dangerous. We also know hopelessness is not a prevention strategy.

There is something else the public rarely sees: this field has an evidence base.

We know more than people think we do about risk reduction, treatment engagement, protective factors, supervision strategies, and prevention. But evidence often struggles to compete—politically—with fear, outrage, and policies designed around what voters emotionally want to hear rather than what research supports.

That disconnect wears on people in this field.

Most professionals doing this work aren’t trying to win ideological battles. They’re trying to answer operational questions every day:

• Who is escalating?
• Who is isolating?
• Who lost housing?
• Who stopped coming to treatment?
• Who is too ashamed to disclose what they need help with?
• Who on staff is burning out?
• Who believes change is possible?

The Pitt succeeded because it trusted audiences to tolerate complexity instead of constantly reassuring them who the heroes and villains were. Our field deserves that same honesty.

Because sexual harm prevention isn’t built in dramatic moments. It’s built in thousands of imperfect human interactions—carried out by professionals working inside systems that ask them to absorb fear, grief, uncertainty, and moral ambiguity every single day.

That’s the real story.

 

Documentary Roundup: Sexual Abuse & Human Trafficking on Screen

Sexual abuse and human trafficking are being examined more openly than ever in documentary filmmaking, with a noticeable rise in projects over the past year. What we are seeing is, in many ways, an expansion of the true crime genre — but with a meaningful shift. Audiences are no longer satisfied with the what and the who. They are increasingly asking why this harm occurs and, more importantly, how do we stop it. Those two questions sit at the heart of ATSA's work and the work of our members.

Practical Insight for Prevention-Focused Treatment

1They highlight pathways to offending.

Across different settings, there are recurring patterns such as gradual boundary violations, normalization within peer groups, misuse of authority, and lack of accountability. These patterns can inform risk assessment and intervention strategies.

2They show the role of environments and systems.

Abuse does not occur in isolation. Organizational culture, supervision gaps, and bystander inaction are often part of the picture. This reinforces the importance of addressing not just individual behavior, but context.

3They demonstrate missed opportunities.

Many cases include earlier warning signs that were overlooked. Understanding these moments can help shape earlier intervention and relapse prevention planning.

4They reflect increasing public awareness.

As these stories become more visible, individuals in treatment may be influenced by them. This can create openings for discussion around accountability, empathy, and the real-world impact of harm.

⚠Content Advisory: Many of these documentaries include sensitive material and may be difficult to watch. Reader and viewer discretion is advised.

Recent & Notable Documentaries

2026

TRUST ME
The False Prophet

Netflix

A cult expert and her filmmaker husband infiltrate the inner circle of Samuel Bateman, a self-proclaimed FLDS prophet who took multiple "wives" — including underage girls — and orchestrated abuse to consolidate control. Focused on coercion, manipulation, and abuse within a religious group, including how power and control are established and maintained.

2026

KEEP QUIET
AND FORGIVE

PBS · Independent Lens

Lizzie, a former Minnesotan Amish woman, breaks decades of silence about her sexual assault and reports her case to police, sparking a nationwide movement of Amish and Mennonite survivors. Highlights how cultural and religious expectations to "forgive and forget" can function as system-level barriers to disclosure, accountability, and prevention.

2025

SEAN COMBS
The Reckoning

Netflix

A four-part docuseries, executive produced by Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, that traces the rise and fall of Sean "Diddy" Combs through interviews and exclusive footage tied to the sexual misconduct allegations against him. Useful for examining how celebrity, wealth, and inner-circle loyalty can shield long-running coercive behavior, and how survivor accounts surface only after a power structure begins to crack.

2025

PREDATORS

Paramount+

Director David Osit revisits Dateline's To Catch a Predator, tracing the people who made it, the men it captured, and the ethical fallout of turning real-life trauma into spectacle. Examines media-driven approaches to confronting offenders and raises questions about deterrence, public exposure, and behavior change.

2025

NUNS vs THE VATICAN

Video-on-Demand

A group of Catholic nuns — including former Sister Gloria Branciani — publicly accuse priests, including Father Marko Rupnik, of sexual and spiritual abuse and confront the Vatican's hidden patterns of cover-up. Explores abuse within a closed system and the role of authority, secrecy, and institutional response.

*Trailer unavailable

2025

BAD INFLUENCE
The Dark Side of Kidfluencing

Netflix

A three-part investigation in which former members of YouTuber Piper Rockelle's "Squad," along with their parents, detail accounts of exploitation and abuse by her manager-mother, Tiffany Smith. Useful for understanding emerging digital pathways to grooming and the unregulated environments that enable harm, including the increasingly blurred line between parent and producer.

2025

GROOMED
A National Scandal

Channel 4

Filmmaker Anna Hall draws on two decades of investigative work on UK gang grooming, as five women share on-camera accounts of grooming, rape, and exploitation — and the police and social services failures that allowed it to continue. Directly relevant to grooming dynamics, missed warning signs, and the institutional response gaps that allow harm to continue.

*Trailer available only in the UK

2024

QUIET ON SET
The Dark Side of Kids TV

Max · Discovery+

A docuseries examining the working environment behind several Nickelodeon shows of the late 1990s and 2000s, with first-hand accounts from cast and crew about misconduct, exploitation, and on-set abuse. Includes accounts of misconduct, boundary violations, and organizational blind spots that allowed harm to occur.

2024

BLACK BOX DIARIES

Limited Theatrical · Festivals

Japanese journalist Shiori Ito documents her own multi-year investigation and prosecution of a prominent broadcaster who sexually assaulted her, blending vérité footage, secret recordings, and first-person video. Highlights systemic barriers to accountability and the social dynamics that can discourage reporting.

2024

BURNING SUN
Exposing the Secret K-pop Chat Groups

BBC Platforms

A BBC Eye investigation into how prominent K-pop stars used private group chats to share evidence of sexual crimes, and the journalists who pushed the story into public view despite industry retaliation. Offers insight into group dynamics and the normalization of harm within a large-scale exploitation, trafficking, and coordinated abuse scandal.

2024

THE PROGRAM
Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping

Netflix

Director Katherine Kubler reunites with former classmates from Academy at Ivy Ridge, a "behavior modification" facility marketed as a boarding school, to expose the abusive practices of the troubled-teen industry. Highlights closed-system dynamics, supervision failures, and the long-term impact of unregulated youth-treatment environments.

2023

GREAT PHOTO,
LOVELY LIFE

HBO · Max

Photojournalist Amanda Mustard spends eight years investigating decades of sexual abuse committed by her grandfather, a trusted local chiropractor, weaving family interviews and archival home video into the inquiry. Offers insight into intra-familial dynamics, intergenerational impact, and how community standing can shield long-running offending behavior.

RECENT

TRAFFICKED
with Mariana van Zeller

Nat Geo · Hulu · Disney+

Award-winning journalist Mariana van Zeller embeds with operators inside global black markets — including human trafficking and sexual exploitation networks — to trace how illicit ecosystems function from the inside. Includes reporting on trafficking networks and the broader ecosystems that support exploitation.