One other thing that my friends and I used to do many years ago when this neighborhood was swarming with little kids..was to put candy in zip loc bags and tape them shut. Included in each one was one of our envelope return address stickers. That was in the days when people were putting needles in candy and some hospitals were even offering to Xray candy for kids.
And we made darn sure that kids only went to houses where we knew the people.
Kids have to be reminded, time after time, NEVER to go into a house with anyone. I once saw a mother walking with her daughter who was selling some sort of school candy, and while Mom was leaning on a car chatting to the driver, her daughter, looked about 7 or 8, walked into a house when someone opened the screen door. But the driver alerted the mom who rushed over and the little girl came out safely.
Scared the spit out of me..her too obviously. Too sad that you can't trust any stranger around kids.
I would LOVE for all newspapers to run columns like my home town one does. The Cabell Standard from West Virginia runs a regular part with people's names and ADDRESSES and what they were arrested for..such as George Renolds (made up name) 1234 Clove Ave (made up address) Hurricane, WV.
Failure to register as a sex offender.
Now if I lived at 1235 Clove Ave I sure as heck would not allow my kids to play any where around that address at any time, no matter how nice dear old uncle George was when he gave candy to kids.
But here in California, bleeding hearts do not allow that, they want all sex offenders to "have the chance to go straight".
No comment I make about that will be allowed in this forum.....