Highland County Sheriff Barrera discusses Halloween, trick or treat safety tips

With Halloween right around the corner, it is crucial that you know which houses your children should avoid when trick-or-treating.

I invite you to view the Ohio Attorney General's website at www.communitynotification.com. Once you are at this site, select your state, then your county. At the top left of the page, you will see a tab entitled "Search for offenders..." You may then research neighborhoods and addresses that are important to you. You may also register to receive e-mail notifications on registered sex offenders within the proximity of these addresses.

The most beneficial aspect of the address monitoring feature is that once your important addresses and e-mail address have been registered, the system will automatically alert you via e-mail when an offender moves within a specified radius of the registered address. Register any and all addresses where your children spend a lot of time, such as friends’, grandparents’ or babysitters’ addresses.

Registering for this confidential e-mail alert service allows us to monitor your important addresses for you, thereby keeping you up-to-date of newly registered offenders and making it unnecessary for you to have to check these addresses daily or even weekly. While visiting our website, you can also view and print important safety tips to review with your children. The e-mail notifications and discussing the various safety tips helps increase awareness.

It is the goal of our office to provide accurate information to the public regarding the dangers of sexual predators, and to further build community awareness. To help us achieve this goal, we utilize OffenderWatch® to manage, monitor the whereabouts and conduct compliance checks of the registered sex offenders within our community.

“Community Notification” empowers you with the knowledge that can be used to protect your family and you from becoming victims. I firmly believe that the more educated and aware a community is of what and where the dangers lurk, the more success we have with our community notification program.

For further information or clarification, contact Sheriff Donnie Barrera at 937-393-1421. The Crime Tip Hotline of the Highland County Sheriff's Office is 937-840-6243.