The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is launching its annual campaign to raise awareness/scare parents about the potential presence of sex offenders in their neighborhoods, so that they avoid those homes when trick-or-treating.

Operation Boo, as the campaign is called, is in its 31st year in 2024, and it is the CDCR's annual effort, on Halloween, to remind parents with young children to keep tabs on those who may be living near them who have been convicted of sex crimes.

Not all sex offenders are prohibited from having contact with minors — because some sex crimes don't involve children — as the CDCR reminds us. And, as the Operation Boo website explains, sex offenders who do have restrictions around contact with minors are, under the conditions of their parole, on lockdown with a mandated curfew starting at 5 pm on Halloween night — and they're not even allowed to answer the door at their homes unless it's for law enforcement or an emergency.

But the CDCR recommends that parents going out with kids for trick-or-treating check the Megan's Law website, which has an interactive tool that shows you, with pin drops, all of the sex offenders who live within a one-mile, two-mile, or five-mile radius of your home. And putting in a San Francisco address, you might be alarmed at how many pin drops there are!

Also, the CDCR has a current listing of wanted, at-large sex offenders, which you can search as well.

"Awareness can go a long way in helping keep children and families safe – not just on Halloween, but all the time," says Jason Johnson, director of the CDCR’s Division of Adult Parole Operations (DAPO). "[The DAPO] is doing our part to keep families and children safe this holiday, but you can do your part by talking to your children before trick-or-treating about personal safety."

Even though it's the CDCR that is recommending this for parents, they also give the caveat that law enforcement no longer uses the "stranger danger" mantra for making kids safe — noting that 90% of sexually abused kids know their abuser.