Non-Fiction: The Reaction Behind Fear: Who is the real villain?

​

The sun rises as you sip on your early morning coffee, the news plays in the background as you ready yourself for another day, or you sit contentedly scrolling through social media. You scroll through a mix of friends' updates, pictures of their children, funny or politically cringy memes, and even news articles. You see it every day, some cautionary tale about one thing or another and the urge to share the post so more people are aware of this grave object of a worrisome nature. We see and feel that sense of worry and yearly attempt at mass hysteria in the Cautionary Tales podcast story, The Halloween Prisoner, which Tim Hartford wrote. The story itself produces the genuine question of who the real villain is in this story and similar ones, and most cases, it's not strangers we have to worry about. Tim Hartford mentions how a detailed analysis informs us that more kids are hit by cars on Halloween than are poised by their candy haul. The same is said for the 'Stranger Danger' epidemic when the real perpetrator to children will most likely be a family member or a family friend, someone the child already knows. We only have to look into child sexual assault cases to see where the real problem comes from as the very root of the issue; RAINN.org mentions that family members initiate 25% of all reported abuse, and someone in their social network initiates 60%. When kids are told to avoid strangers and only trust their inner circle, how do you report wrongdoings from the inner circle you're supposed to trust only? How are children supposed to simply 'know better' when the people they trust are purposely moving forward with the intent to harm them for more significant personal gain, like the death of Timothy O'Brian at the hand of his father? Is a stranger still the real foe? 

Or is the foe someone perceiving to have their best interest at heart?