Maybe, with a new millennium, it is time for a new paradigm. Let's not go trick or treating at all. Instead, whole blocks of neighbors should get together and have common meals. Set up long tables on a lawn. Each person should bring food, a chair, even a fork, and be prepared to actually get to know neighbors.
Costumes are fine.
Prizes for costumes are good. Candy can be in a bowl, for those good children who eat their dinner. Neighbors get to trade stories, do some bonding, tell tall tales about the lawn mower from hell. Turn Halloween into a chance for community building, which in turn would mean our kids would be safer because more adults would be keeping an eye on them. Best of all, we would no longer sending mixed signals to our kids.