Royal Oak Sex Offender Registry: 2020 Safety Guide

ROYAL OAK, MI — Halloween is Saturday, and before parents take their children trick or treating, they may want to take a look at who is living in their neighborhood. Thousands of sex offenders are living in the Metro Detroit region, according to the Michigan Sex Offender Registry.

The registry, which accounts for registered sex offenders who currently reside in or who had past addresses in a particular city, Royal Oak has been home to 111 people currently registered as sex offenders.

You can use this map to search neighborhoods if you don't want your child knocking on the door of a sex offender. You can search by sex offender's name, address, age and convictions.

Law enforcement officials and researchers caution that the registries play 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.

The Association for the Treatment of Sex Abusers, a nonprofit organization for clinicians, researchers, educators, law enforcement and court officials involved in sexual abuse cases, cautions that children do not face a heightened risk during the Halloween season: "There is no change in the rate of sexual crimes by non-family members during Halloween. That was true both before and after communities enacted laws to restrict the activities of registrants during Halloween. The crimes that do increase around Halloween are vandalism and property destruction, as well as theft, assault, and burglary."

Registered sex offenders are prohibited from passing out candy on Halloween. They may not appear in a Halloween costume or other child-centered holiday character, such as Santa and the Easter Bunny, in public.

Related:

• NARSOL Objects To Local Mapping Of Registered Sex Offenders
• Why Patch Publishes Sex Offender Registry Maps