How scary is Halloween? Isn't it rife with child molesters, dangerous strangers, car crashes and tall teenagers, not to mention multiple forms of poison?
Perhaps not. Lenore Skenazy observes:
Elizabeth Letourneau, an associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, studied crime statistics from 30 states and found, "There is zero evidence to support the idea that Halloween is a dangerous date for children in terms of child molestation."
In fact, she says, "We almost called this paper, 'Halloween: The Safest Day of the Year,' because it was just so incredibly rare to see anything happen on that day."
(via Jesse Walker at Reason)
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