Parents waiting in their front yards for the school bus, watching their kids, who are thirty feet away on the sidewalk, until they get on the bus.
Speaking of school buses, I am just reminded of when I was a kid, our bus driver had one of those naked lady steering wheel handle accessories. . . .until my mother reported it.
The overwhelming majority of child molestation takes place within the home, by a relative or mommy's "boyfriend".
I wouldn't be in the least surprised to find out that kids are safer in the park.
We where told about stranger danger and not talking to weirdos.
Crime was MUCH WORSE in the late Seventies and Eighties than it is now. We have arrested and incarcerated a great deal of the problems.
Kids who know they'll be restricted to only activities with their parents and will lose recreational access to computers and video games for one year will not skip school.
As far as "there are perverts everywhere"? There always have been. Children need reasonable rules of staying in groups of two or three, have safe places to walk and wait for the bus, and in areas where there are adults who can keep an eye from a distance. A far worse danger, if there are reasonable rules in place, is that the children never learn to think for themselves, follow rules when left alone even for a few minutes, and learn how to stay safe and recognize danger. They need time and space to develop creativity and time management. If they don't learn those things as they mature, they'll be terrible adults.