As parents shop for last minute Halloween candy and costumes, they say trick or treating safety is their number one concern.

Parent, Angela Masbruch is the mom of four year-old Judah. She says, "he's the most precious thing we have, so there's a lot of creeps out there, that are looking to hurt little boys like him."

Angela says she's doing everything she can to keep Judah safe this Halloween. "We'll go with our group of friends, like I said just to make sure that we all stay together, also we always check his candy before he eats it."

In addition to basic safety precautions, like checking candy and making sure that kids costumes are well lit, police officers say keeping kids away from sex offenders should also be a top priority. Rockford police Sgt. Marc Welsch says there are about 500 registered sex offenders living in Rockford.

"Our Youth Services Bureau is working on a special detail over the next few days to do extra verifications of sex offenders," says Welsch.

Starting tomorrow, police are going door to door to make sure sex offenders are following the law . Welsch says, we''re doing "extra-enforcement, going out and checking out extra sex-offenders and making some sex offenders are compliant."

Before the kids head out to collect treats, Welsch says parents can check the sex offender registry websites. This will show them which houses to avoid.

Angela says, "we've looked at the website and just kind of got an idea of any sexual predators that might be near us ."

In addition to checking up on sex offenders, police will also be out in full force this Halloween to help keep trick or treater's safe.