Seasonal & Holidays
Huntersville 2019 Halloween Sex Offender Safety Information
Find out where the registered sex offenders are living in Huntersville before the kids go out trick or treating.
HUNTERSVILLE, NC — Before kids go out trick or treating on Halloween, fall is a good time to take an inventory of who is living in your neighborhood. Huntersville currently has 27 registered sex offenders listed on the North Carolina's sex offender registry.
To make it simple for parents across the state to look up registered sex offenders, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation offers a handy, searchable database. That database contains the names, offenses and last known addresses of the state's registered sexual offenders and predators.
Pins on the map represent addresses of offenders convicted of sex crimes. Roll your cursor over the pins, and you will see more information pop up, including the registered sex offender's name, address, current age, convictions, and the age of the victim at the time of the offense.
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The information on the online registry is considered public record, NCSBI said. "This information is made available for purposes of protecting the public, for increasing awareness, for keeping the public informed and for allowing citizens to take proactive measures to ensure safety in their communities," the website said.
Residents can also sign up to receive notifications by signing up here.
Find out what's happening in Huntersvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Law enforcement officials and researchers caution that the registries can play only a limited role in preventing child sexual abuse and stress that most perpetrators are known to the child. The U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the National Sex Offender Public Website, estimates that only about 10 percent of perpetrators of child sexual abuse are strangers to the child.
The Justice Department estimates 60 percent of perpetrators are known to the child but are not family members but rather family friends, babysitters, child care providers and others, and 30 percent of child victims are abused by family members. Nearly a quarter of the abusers are under the age of 18, the department estimates.
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