70 Sex Offenders In Alexandria: 2020 Safety Map

ALEXANDRIA, VA — Fall is a good time to take an inventory of who is living in your neighborhood. The City of Alexandria has 70 registered sex offenders, four more than this time last year, according to the Virginia Sex Offender Registry.

Scroll down to see a map of registered sex offenders in the area. That number doesn't include people who list work locations in Alexandria, homeless individuals, or incarcerated individuals.

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."

Although traditional trick-or-treat isn't recommended by Alexandria officials this year due to the pandemic, there are rules to know surrounding Halloween for registered sex offenders. According to the Virginia Sex Offender Registry, registered sex offenders cannot hand out candy on Halloween if they have restrictions related to probation supervision not allowing contact with children. In those cases, they may not turn their porch lights on or open the door to trick-or-treaters.

If the convicted sex offender is not on supervision, they can participate in trick-or-treat and other Halloween activities. On Halloween, Virginia State Police's Sex Offender Investigative Unit works with the Department of Corrections Probation and Parole to check on sex offenders under supervision.

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