Why don't kids walk home from school these days?

[Monster]

without reading what everyone else said, I'll give my answer briefly, perverts and weirdos.

while I live in a nice little idyllic North Jersey town, we still have, on occasion, reports of vans or cars following children, and/or pulling up beside them and trying to get them to come closer, or get in the car to direct them to their destination, etc.
On occasion we have high speed chases on our nice quite roads, sometimes even with gunshots, and sometimes the scum even get the kids they target.