HALLOWEEN CRIME STATISTICS
Published crime statistics from the Virginia Tech and Blacksburg police and Montgomery County Sherriff's offices showed no correlation between the Halloween holiday and its associated trick-or-treating and any significant change in crime patterns.
Halloween on Tech's campus was relatively subdued, with only a few reports of petty larceny, public intoxication and an inactive report of harassing phone calls reported to the Virginia Tech Police Department.
Figures for the past few years were not immediately available.
Blacksburg police reported an even quieter night with only five crimes logged, the most serious of those being a vehicle theft. Figures were similar for the past 2 years.
The most recent Montgomery County Sherriff's statistics showed no serious crimes for this year or last, and one reported assault in 2006.
These figures are comparable to any other weeknight in the area, according to a cross-reference against Friday nights and in the case of the Blacksburg Police Department were comparatively lower.
Most of the horror stories relating to Halloween have been traced to hoaxes put on by either parents or children.
A University of Delaware sociology professor analyzed more than 40 years' worth of newspaper stories on Halloween candy tampering and found that in all documented cases these were the work of either parents or children with no single instance of injury reported.
--by Gabe Mcvey
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