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In a move to ensure the safety of children celebrating Halloween, the Sheriff’s office of Butts County, Georgia, took the unprecedented precautionary step of posting “no trick-or-treat” signs in the yards of registered sex offenders.
The signs posted by the Sheriff’s office read: “Warning! No trick-or-treat at this address!! A community safety message from Butts County Sheriff Gary Long.” The signs include a graphic which displays stop signs, as well as, the universal “no” slashed circle icon imposed over the image of a Halloween trick-or-treat bag.
In an interview with CBS News, Sheriff Long told reporters that there are currently 54 registered sex offenders in Butts County.
On Saturday, Long and his officers placed a sign at the edge of the yard of each sex offender in the community.
“I’m not trying to humiliate ’em or anything like that. Let’s face reality: We have a greater chance of children getting run over by a car [on Halloween] than being a victim of sexual assault by a repeat offender,” Sheriff Long told CBS News. “But at the end of the day if, in fact, we had a child that fell victim to a sexual assault, especially by a convicted sex offender, I don’t think I could sleep at night.”
While some may wonder if the Sheriff’s placement of the signs are legal, Georgia laws don’t appear to be in contradiction with his actions. In fact, they seem to be in perfect accordance with the definition of his duty.
In a post on the Butts County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page Saturday on Saturday, Sheriff Long wrote that the signs were placed “in accordance with Georgia Law O.C.G.A. 42-1-12-i(5) which states the Sheriff shall inform the public of the presence of sexual offenders in each community.”
This also follows a similar legal explanation on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation website, which reads: “The sheriff’s office in each county shall: Inform the public of the presence of sexual offenders in each community.”
Long told CBS News that his officers will remove the signs following Halloween, by Thursday morning.
