How concerned parents can avoid sex offenders homes on Halloween

County sheriffs are encouraging families to be aware of registered sex offenders who live along their trick-or-treat routes this Halloween.

In Kane County, parents can log onto kanesheriff.com for a list of sex offenders living within two miles of any county address. There are similar Web sites in DuPage and Lake counties. In McHenry and Cook counties, the sheriffs offices have a link on their Web site referring people to the state's sex offender registry.

"We do the best we can in making sure sex offenders live where they tell us, so it is crucial that our citizens visit our Web site to see who and where an offender might be living in their neighborhood," Kane County Sheriff Pat Perez said.

About 400 registered sex offenders live in Kane County, according to Perez. Once registered online, citizens receive real-time alerts by e-mail whenever an offender moves to the neighborhood.

The alerts, provided through the sheriff's OffenderWatch program, include offenders in a radius of a quarter-mile to two miles. Perez says parents should register their home addresses, as well as any others frequented by their children, including those of relatives, friends and baby sitters.

"The benefit of registering ... is keeping you up to date of newly registered offenders and making it unnecessary for you to have to check your important addresses daily or even weekly," he said.

The DuPage Sheriff's Web site, sheriffalerts.com/cap_main.php? office=54038, allows residents to check for sex offenders by address or ZIP code. It lists the date of conviction, nature of the offense and plots the offenders' residences on a map. People can sign up for alerts of any offenders moving into a particular neighborhood.

On the Lake County Sheriff's Web site, visitors can look up registered sex offenders by town or name. Clicking the individual's name provides an individual's exact address, offense and conviction date. Sheriff's spokesman Lt. Christopher Thompson said the Web site doesn't have a specific area to type in an address to get a two-mile radius similar to Kane County. The Web site is lakecountyil.gov/Sheriff/communitysafety/SexOffenderList.htm.

The McHenry County sheriff's Web site is co.mchenry.il.us/departments/sheriff/Pages/index.aspx, and in Cook it's cookcountysheriff.org.

Additionally, citizens can search for neighborhood listings in the state's online Sex Offender Registry at isp.state.il.us/sor/.

For more information on Kane's OffenderWatch program, call (630) 208-2037.

To sign up for Kane's OffenderWatch, go to the sheriff's Web site, click on "locate registered sex offenders" and follow the instructions to receive e-mail alerts.