SANTA MARIA, Calif.- In just a few days, your child will be going door-to-door trick or treating inevitably coming face-to-face with a stranger. So, how well do you know your neighbors from registered sex offenders to criminals?
"Yeah, very! We usually go with our children when we trick or treat but yea that's scary," says Santa Maria parent, Lisa Burress.
As Lisa Burress helps her son find that perfect Halloween costume she's taken aback after hearing there are 142 registered sex offenders living in Santa Maria where her son will be trick or treating.
Now apps like "Life 360" show parents exactly where these predators are located.
"I fear for my kids, so when I used to take them trick or treating it would just be maybe the mall or the churches have open trunks, I'll go to the churches," says Alecia Chavez, a Santa Maria resident.
Alecia Chavez says she lives on the same block as a sex offender and says she doesn't let her children go trick or treating because of it.
"You don't know what anyone is doing, people have very horrible intentions and it kind of sucks you have to think that way but you kind of have to," says Chavez.
Law enforcement says they are making sure sex offenders are monitored during Halloween with Operation Boo, making sure they follow curfew, don't have any outside lights on and don't hand out any candy. Some think it's too much and that police are going overboard.
"Millions upon millions of tax payer dollars are being wasted and the reason that they are being wasted is there is not a reported case, not even one, of a child being assaulted while trick or treating on Halloween," says Janice Bellucci, President of The California Reforms Sex Offender Laws Organization.
There are almost 92,000 sex offenders in California and the Department of Corrections says only 11% are monitored by parole officers.
