North Hills 2019 Halloween Safety Sex Offender Map

ROSS TOWNSHIP, PA - Before kids go trick-or- treating on Halloween, you might want take inventory of who is living in your neighborhood. There are 18 Ross and West View residents currently listed on the Pennsylvania State Police Sex Offender Registry.

Patch created a township and borough map to identify the relevant addresses of convicted sex offenders to give people the opportunity to make informed decisions on which residences to approach for trick-or-treating.

Roll your cursor over the pins on the map and you will find the registered sex offenders name, address, year of birth birth and the primary offense for which he or she is registered. You might want to avoid trick-or-treating at these houses and apartments or perhaps merely be aware of who's living in your neighborhood during the rest of the year.

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.