Requiring people who have unsupervised access to other people’s children to undergo a criminal record check seems perfectly reasonable to me. If the janitor has to, why not volunteers?
1) No one said anything about unsupervised access to kids. One link mentions little league coaches (typically at least two per team, plus a horde of kids, in an open field). The other mentions classroom volunteers (presumably helping teachers or other volunteers, and also in front of a horde of kids.)
2) I might accept background checks for people who might be left alone with kids under unlikely but plausible circumstances, but asking the volunteers, who are already graciously offering their time, to pay money for their own background check in order to prove they’re not a pedophile is one insult too many.
Requiring people who have unsupervised access to other people’s children to undergo a criminal record check seems perfectly reasonable to me.
So you are against the background check then, right?
Volunteers do not have “unsupervised access to other people’s children.”
Despite the plethora of volunteers in schools, you seldom hear of a volunteer doing anything to a child. A teacher? Yes. A coach? Yes. An administrator? Yes. Volunteers? Not so much.
This is a feel good measure done “for the kids” that has no basis in the real world.
Interestingly, when I took over as soccer coach for my son’s U8 league, I had to be fingerprinted. Never was there a time when I could have been in a compromising position, since every single child had at least one parent present for every practice and game. (Oh, and as to the cost, I think it was around $20. I wrote it off as a charitable contribution to the league. Not exactly a game-breaker.)
You really think that volunteers never have unsupervised access to children? My mom is a teacher and I know that one of the most frequent uses of volunteers is on field trips, where the volunteers take groups of students around the site, to bathrooms, etc. There may be multiple children, but no other adults.
I know the incidence of volunteers harming children is low, but it’s a fairly inexpensive, non-invasive way to make the most basic determination if people into whose care we are placing our children are criminals. That seems perfectly rational and reasonable to me.
There may be multiple children, but no other adults. So there is no time when the volunteer is able to do something with or to the child, correct?
I know the incidence of volunteers harming children is low,
The incidents of teachers and coaches bringing harm to kids is much higher than volunteers. We agree on that. Yet teachers and coaches are all fingerprinted prior to working for schools. In other words, fingerprinting doesn’t stop anything.
but it’s a fairly inexpensive, non-invasive way to make the most basic determination if people into whose care we are placing our children are criminals.
Tell ya what…. if you think it is not invasive to have your fingerprints taken by someone and entered into a data base or checked against a database, then all parents should have to have their fingerprints taken. After all, a child is far more likely to be abused by a parent than a volunteer.
If you don’t want your children to possibly be placed in the hands of criminals (whatever that means is open to discussion) then volunteer to be with your kids on class trips.
Otherwise, do not disparage the reputation of other parents by insisting that they pay money to volunteer to assuage your unfounded fears. Even better, how about stepping up to the plate and paying the fee for them? That way they aren’t losing money to watch and help educate your child.
The point is that teachers and administrators don’t want the public around. So for the sake of the children, they dream up new ways to harass a legitimate public purpose that the volunteers would otherwise exercise, namely to allow a little sunshine on the factory farm education mill. And they have managed to convince James and Ron that their purposes are benign, when in fact the schools want all that unsupervised time with your kids for themselves.
“when in fact the schools want all that unsupervised time with your kids for themselves.”
They want all time with the kids for themselves. If they could get away with it they’d ban homeschooling and turn every school into a mandatory dorm facility where the kids are locked up without access to the outside world (including their parents, even especially their parents) from birth to adulthood.
Nevins, I don’t think there are many teachers who would agree with you. Then again, you probably don’t care because you have pretty much said they are conspiring together to stop kids from getting sunshine. My experience with teachers – I have three young kids – has been exactly the opposite.
Ultimately, you are a volunteer. If it is a deal killer for you to get fingerprinted because it is such a big hassle, I’d really rather not have you volunteering at my kid’s school anyway. I agree is an awful – really awful – feeling to have to prove you are not a risk to children. It is a little degrading, no doubt. But balancing that against the risk to my children? Somebody give me an ink pad.
As for the FBI never letting go of a fingerprint, good for them.
It is really outrageous. Considering most child molesters are friends or family members(!!) of the children, it’s really the parents and their friends and families that should be fingerprinted before the child is even born.
It’s funny how many people support trampling other people’s civil liberties to prevent the crimes they are most likely to cause.
Ok, don’t fingerprint. How then, do you propose that individuals be screened for access? What method would be sufficiently noninvasive? Or are you suggesting that they not be vetted at all, in the interests of privacy?
Just what are we screening for? If the purpose is to keep “criminals” away from kids, what types of “criminals” are we talking about? Someone convicted of trespassing? Someone who stole a candy bar in college? Felons? One of my neighbors is a grandmother and a convicted felon. She was caught driving without insurance 3 times. Does that disqualify her from volunteering at a school for her granddaughter? If you want to say that you are looking to screen out child abusers, that is fine, but they are already in the system and cannot be near kids anyway. A failure of a probation system should not mean the rest of the world suffers.
I live in rather small town in a large county in Florida. In the past 4 years that this type of regulation has been going on, 3 teachers , 1 coach and 1 vendor / contractor have been charged with child abuse. No volunteers. Not a one. None of the people charged had records. What is the benefit of treating people who want to help like criminals?
For those who say “it is only $20,” that is wrong a well. Here in Florida the actual fingerprinting and matching costs $128. Taxes make up the difference between the $20 fee and the $128. Teachers don’t pay anything to have the check done as it is part of their contract.
The question is really “how effective is this screening?”
I wonder if Ed, Ron, and James would be on board with DNA samples. How expensive could it be to swab a person’s mouth? It’s also minimally invasive!
Volunteers may also drive or have to take over if the bus driver has a heart attack, so I think they should all have to take a breathalyzer test. Again, it’s “minimally invasive” and cheap!
1. I’d be fine with a DNA sample as long as they don’t go in the back of my throat like a strep test. I hate that. Otherwise, I’m cool with the DNA. I understand people are sensitive about these things. I don’t care. I don’t even understand why I would be so protective about my DNA. I’m leaving it everywhere all of the time.
2. “If you want to say that you are looking to screen out child abusers, that is fine, but they are already in the system and cannot be near kids anyway. ”
Child molesters are not allowed to be near kids anyway. Does anyone – anyone – think this is an argument that has a modicum of logic? Guess what? We had a law in the first place to stop them place because, ah, molesting a child is illegal.
3. You can use whatever criteria the community agrees upon via its lawmakers as who can be excluded for prior bad acts. If it is a private school, they can set whatever criteria they want.
4. Gitacarver, thank you for your study from Florida that volunteers have never been charged with an offence while being volunteers. This make me feel like my kids are safe from any volunteer now.
Ultimately, every reasonable person agrees that children are safer by screening out child molesters. Everyone agrees that someone convicted of molesting a child is more likely that someone who has not of molesting a child.
The question being debated by different sides on this board is where that line should be drawn. Everyone draws different lines. For example, I believe in child seats because they help make kids safe. But wearing helmets while in a car would also make our children safer. Yet I’m not proposing that. So it a question of how far we should go. That is a reasonable discussion to have. What is not reasonable is to say that child molesters are not allowed to be near kids anyway and that is a reason to drop our guard and not worry about it so much.
Ron: You are a pedophile, and I will not be convinced otherwise unless you pay a fee and undergo an extensive background check. I don’t actually believe that, but that’s essentially what schools are saying when they adopt a policy like this. Hopefully you can see how some decent citizens would be a little offended by this. I’d also say the question of what is a disqualifying offense needs clarifying. Maybe I got carried away when the Sox won the Series and picked up a drunk & disorderly – does that mean that, years later and despite no other legal troubles since, I am not allowed to take any part in my son’s education? Just because I’m not a pedophile doesn’t mean my past is an open book that I’m comfortable with anyone reading. Last point for now: someone has to pay for these background checks and a quick Google search thinks a good nationwide criminal background check can cost $50-$150. Assume they’re $75 a head and you have a 6-team little league with 2 coaches per team. That’s $900 – not a negligible amount of money for some leagues. How much are you willing to spend for something that will turn up nothing because your son’s coach is almost certainly not a pedophile and even if he were there’s a good chance the background check won’t catch him anyway?
Child molesters are not allowed to be near kids anyway. Does anyone – anyone – think this is an argument that has a modicum of logic?
It makes sense when you start to realize that a system is in place already that excludes child molesters from schools. If that system fails, fix it. Do not add another system that doesn’t do anything and penalizes law abiding citizens.
You’re right. It all makes sense now. Background checks are useless because they aren’t 100% effective. So abandon them. No need to check up on anyone.
Child molesters are not allowed to be near kids anyway. Really? You really think that is a valid answer? Following your logic. There will never be a repeat offender, because they are not allowed to be one. Right?
BTW, I never stated that I am for or against fingerprinting. I simply asked what method would be used if not fingerprinting. Driver’s license check works for me, so long as someone really checks it, and doesn’t just assume that the possession of a driver’s license means they are safe.
Child molesters are not allowed to be near kids anyway. Really? You really think that is a valid answer? Following your logic. There will never be a repeat offender, because they are not allowed to be one. Right?
No Ed, the logic is that if there is a system in place that is ineffective, it seems that many want to put another, costly, ineffective system on top of it instead of fixing the original system.
An analogy would be if your car breaks down, you wouldn’t go out and purchase another, non working vehicle. Doing so would not make any sense. Yet that is what the “fingerprinting” and “background checks” do.
They do not address the failure of the underlying system, and they do nothing to add any layer of protection for anyone.
A solution to what problem? I wasn’t aware there was a wave of child molestations that need to be addressed. -The overwhelming majority of people are not predators. -There are measures in place to find and stop the small minority that are. -And if a child is molested… it’s a terrible thing to happen, but not all tragedies are foreseeable. People with the benefit of hindsight want to think there’s always something that could have been done to prevent a tragedy, but it’s not true. By all means, take reasonable precautions, but we can’t definitively prevent 100% of all child abuse and if you use that as your goal then EVERY solution you can think of will seem like it isn’t doing enough.
Benji, it depends on how you define a wave. Your other points:
-Overwhelming majority? Of course. But that clearly is not the point: we all agree that .1% is a number that is way too large -I don’t think there are enough measures in place to stop the problem we are trying to address: repeat offenders. I suspect a small number of people are the biggest criminals, many of which have already been caught and prosecuted -Absolutely true that you can’t prevent all risk. I lose sleep at night knowing you are exactly correct, not just about this risk but risk in general. But, ultimately, would you be willing to have us all give our fingerprints to save one child from being molested. I would. Your best comeback would be to grab what I said earlier: would I require every kid to wear a helmet if it would save one life? You draw the line somewhere, I guess. I draw it somewhere after fingerprints.
“I lose sleep at night knowing you are exactly correct, not just about this risk but risk in general. ”
Then add this to your list: There is risk when giving personal information to institutions.
There has yet to be any mention of what would happen if volunteer’s background check resulted in a false positive. Report them to other authorities “just in case”? After all, it’s for the children™.
Absolutely. Chock, you are right. Everything comes with risks. It sucks. I don’t know how many “false positives” there have been in identifying convicted child molesters. Getting wrongfully accused would be just awful. A kid getting molested is beyond awful. We can survive a few false positives if it protects children. But I’m not sure we can survive many more “After all, it’s for the children™” jokes.
With finger prints, a false positive is much less likely to happen. Also, just because the check doesn’t turn up a lot of offenders, doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t doing the job. It may dissuade some people from applying.
Also, what I haven’t seen mentioned is other types of felons. How about keeping people with drug convictions from volunteering at the high school?
It may, except it doesn’t dissuade coaches and teachers that abuse kids.
Fingerprinting only gets more people into the legal system. It does not prevent anything further that a regular non-fingerprinting background check wouldn’t bring forth.
Secondly, it is great to think that it will prevent child abuse, but if that is the case, then how do you explain teachers and coaches that abuse kids? They are fingerprinted by contract and it doesn’t stop them. It doesn’t dissuade them from applying for the position and knowing they are on record doesn’t dissuade them from actually committing the crime.
How about keeping people with drug convictions from volunteering at the high school?
That might eliminate half the teachers. 😉 (just kidding)
But that is an issue that I raised and never got an answer. What “crime” is acceptable? Drug convictions? A DUI? Trespassing? Theft? How about an 18 year old that was convicted of sex with a minor who was his girlfriend at the time and now is his wife of 20 years? Is someone who was convicted of tax evasion good enough to volunteer?
What happens if the search turns up something that doesn’t have anything to do with the school or volunteering? For instance, what happens if the person has some unpaid parking tickets on the books? Should the state then use the information from the fingerprinting to come and arrest the person?
This type of invasive check simply a tangent of “guilty until proven innocent.” That’s not the way this country works.
Wow! We actually have a decent discussion on the internet! Somebody alert the media!
But I will say this – part of this argument is that this is a minimally invasive requirement and hey, even if it doesn’t screen out 100% of potential child molesters it is worth the effort if it screens out a few. But what if there are unintended consequences to this?
To start with, are child molesters really that stupid that they are likely to submit to background checks which will identify them as child molesters? Only the stupid ones will get caught, the smart ones not only won’t get caught but – now that we feel safer knowing these volunteers have been screened – they will be that much harder to catch because we aren’t looking as hard for them .
If you think about it, even a minimally invasive requirement will keep some good parents from volunteering on the grounds that volunteering is now just too much hassle. The more burdensome the requirements to volunteer become, the smaller the pool of volunteers will become. In order to volunteer, you are going to have to work at it, you are really going to *want* to volunteer. You are really going to *want* the opportunity to be alone with unsupervised little children in order to go through the process of being allowed to volunteer. And who wants more to be alone with unsupervised little children than a child molester?
I know, I’m probably crazy to think that by attempting to decrease the likelihood of harm from child molesters you may actually be increasing the risk. I may also be crazy to think that mandatory seatbelt laws might have made driving less safe or that outlawing alcohol may have increased the incidence of alcoholism or that mandating fuel and energy efficiency may have led to an increase in the use of fuel and energy or that sending free food to starving Africans may have led to more starving Africans……………..
Your post is really an example of the unintended(?) consequences of treating every adult as a potential child molester – guilty until proven innocent. You wrote:
And who wants more to be alone with unsupervised little children than a child molester?
Do you understand how perverted that sentence is? My four daughters are now adults, but I was a SAHM for 16 years of their youth and I wanted to be at their schools volunteering because I wanted to participate in their lives. I did PTA and ran talent shows. I headed up fundraisers and worked in classrooms. I was a Band Booster mom for 13 high school years, everything from running the concession stand at football games to chaperoning the band when it toured out-of-state. I love working with kids, especially teens. But your blanket statement reduces parenting to warehousing and anyone that wants to get involved with their kids’ activities must have some ulterior motive.
And this fingerprinting of parents who volunteer creates a false sense of security. As if a molester who doesn’t have a record gives a rip about fingerprinting.
36 Comments
Requiring people who have unsupervised access to other people’s children to undergo a criminal record check seems perfectly reasonable to me. If the janitor has to, why not volunteers?
I agree with James.
Also, get your own CII number, Citizen! Note that the FBI has never, ever let go of a fingerprint it has collected, whether criminal or not…
But go ahead. I mean, they wouldn’t use it for any non-approved purpose, amiright?
1) No one said anything about unsupervised access to kids. One link mentions little league coaches (typically at least two per team, plus a horde of kids, in an open field). The other mentions classroom volunteers (presumably helping teachers or other volunteers, and also in front of a horde of kids.)
2) I might accept background checks for people who might be left alone with kids under unlikely but plausible circumstances, but asking the volunteers, who are already graciously offering their time, to pay money for their own background check in order to prove they’re not a pedophile is one insult too many.
What Benji said in point 1. When I volunteered in a 5th grade class, the teacher was ALWAYS there.
Requiring people who have unsupervised access to other people’s children to undergo a criminal record check seems perfectly reasonable to me.
So you are against the background check then, right?
Volunteers do not have “unsupervised access to other people’s children.”
Despite the plethora of volunteers in schools, you seldom hear of a volunteer doing anything to a child. A teacher? Yes. A coach? Yes. An administrator? Yes. Volunteers? Not so much.
This is a feel good measure done “for the kids” that has no basis in the real world.
Interestingly, when I took over as soccer coach for my son’s U8 league, I had to be fingerprinted. Never was there a time when I could have been in a compromising position, since every single child had at least one parent present for every practice and game. (Oh, and as to the cost, I think it was around $20. I wrote it off as a charitable contribution to the league. Not exactly a game-breaker.)
You really think that volunteers never have unsupervised access to children? My mom is a teacher and I know that one of the most frequent uses of volunteers is on field trips, where the volunteers take groups of students around the site, to bathrooms, etc. There may be multiple children, but no other adults.
I know the incidence of volunteers harming children is low, but it’s a fairly inexpensive, non-invasive way to make the most basic determination if people into whose care we are placing our children are criminals. That seems perfectly rational and reasonable to me.
There may be multiple children, but no other adults.
So there is no time when the volunteer is able to do something with or to the child, correct?
I know the incidence of volunteers harming children is low,
The incidents of teachers and coaches bringing harm to kids is much higher than volunteers. We agree on that. Yet teachers and coaches are all fingerprinted prior to working for schools. In other words, fingerprinting doesn’t stop anything.
but it’s a fairly inexpensive, non-invasive way to make the most basic determination if people into whose care we are placing our children are criminals.
Tell ya what…. if you think it is not invasive to have your fingerprints taken by someone and entered into a data base or checked against a database, then all parents should have to have their fingerprints taken. After all, a child is far more likely to be abused by a parent than a volunteer.
If you don’t want your children to possibly be placed in the hands of criminals (whatever that means is open to discussion) then volunteer to be with your kids on class trips.
Otherwise, do not disparage the reputation of other parents by insisting that they pay money to volunteer to assuage your unfounded fears. Even better, how about stepping up to the plate and paying the fee for them? That way they aren’t losing money to watch and help educate your child.
The point is that teachers and administrators don’t want the public around.
So for the sake of the children, they dream up new ways to harass a legitimate public purpose that the volunteers would otherwise exercise, namely to allow a little sunshine on the factory farm education mill.
And they have managed to convince James and Ron that their purposes are benign, when in fact the schools want all that unsupervised time with your kids for themselves.
“when in fact the schools want all that unsupervised time with your kids for themselves.”
They want all time with the kids for themselves. If they could get away with it they’d ban homeschooling and turn every school into a mandatory dorm facility where the kids are locked up without access to the outside world (including their parents, even especially their parents) from birth to adulthood.
Nevins, I don’t think there are many teachers who would agree with you. Then again, you probably don’t care because you have pretty much said they are conspiring together to stop kids from getting sunshine. My experience with teachers – I have three young kids – has been exactly the opposite.
Ultimately, you are a volunteer. If it is a deal killer for you to get fingerprinted because it is such a big hassle, I’d really rather not have you volunteering at my kid’s school anyway. I agree is an awful – really awful – feeling to have to prove you are not a risk to children. It is a little degrading, no doubt. But balancing that against the risk to my children? Somebody give me an ink pad.
As for the FBI never letting go of a fingerprint, good for them.
It is really outrageous. Considering most child molesters are friends or family members(!!) of the children, it’s really the parents and their friends and families that should be fingerprinted before the child is even born.
It’s funny how many people support trampling other people’s civil liberties to prevent the crimes they are most likely to cause.
I think that’s misstated, Xmas. Just because one is a member of a class that is more likely to do something says nothing about the individual.
Bob
Ok, don’t fingerprint.
How then, do you propose that individuals be screened for access? What method would be sufficiently noninvasive? Or are you suggesting that they not be vetted at all, in the interests of privacy?
Ed,
Just what are we screening for? If the purpose is to keep “criminals” away from kids, what types of “criminals” are we talking about? Someone convicted of trespassing? Someone who stole a candy bar in college? Felons? One of my neighbors is a grandmother and a convicted felon. She was caught driving without insurance 3 times. Does that disqualify her from volunteering at a school for her granddaughter? If you want to say that you are looking to screen out child abusers, that is fine, but they are already in the system and cannot be near kids anyway. A failure of a probation system should not mean the rest of the world suffers.
I live in rather small town in a large county in Florida. In the past 4 years that this type of regulation has been going on, 3 teachers , 1 coach and 1 vendor / contractor have been charged with child abuse. No volunteers. Not a one. None of the people charged had records. What is the benefit of treating people who want to help like criminals?
For those who say “it is only $20,” that is wrong a well. Here in Florida the actual fingerprinting and matching costs $128. Taxes make up the difference between the $20 fee and the $128. Teachers don’t pay anything to have the check done as it is part of their contract.
The question is really “how effective is this screening?”
The answer is “not at all.”
So why do it?
I wonder if Ed, Ron, and James would be on board with DNA samples. How expensive could it be to swab a person’s mouth? It’s also minimally invasive!
Volunteers may also drive or have to take over if the bus driver has a heart attack, so I think they should all have to take a breathalyzer test. Again, it’s “minimally invasive” and cheap!
I see no problem with a background check — here’s my driver’s license, do your worst.
But my fingerprints? What possible good are those?
1. I’d be fine with a DNA sample as long as they don’t go in the back of my throat like a strep test. I hate that. Otherwise, I’m cool with the DNA. I understand people are sensitive about these things. I don’t care. I don’t even understand why I would be so protective about my DNA. I’m leaving it everywhere all of the time.
2. “If you want to say that you are looking to screen out child abusers, that is fine, but they are already in the system and cannot be near kids anyway. ”
Child molesters are not allowed to be near kids anyway. Does anyone – anyone – think this is an argument that has a modicum of logic? Guess what? We had a law in the first place to stop them place because, ah, molesting a child is illegal.
3. You can use whatever criteria the community agrees upon via its lawmakers as who can be excluded for prior bad acts. If it is a private school, they can set whatever criteria they want.
4. Gitacarver, thank you for your study from Florida that volunteers have never been charged with an offence while being volunteers. This make me feel like my kids are safe from any volunteer now.
Ultimately, every reasonable person agrees that children are safer by screening out child molesters. Everyone agrees that someone convicted of molesting a child is more likely that someone who has not of molesting a child.
The question being debated by different sides on this board is where that line should be drawn. Everyone draws different lines. For example, I believe in child seats because they help make kids safe. But wearing helmets while in a car would also make our children safer. Yet I’m not proposing that. So it a question of how far we should go. That is a reasonable discussion to have. What is not reasonable is to say that child molesters are not allowed to be near kids anyway and that is a reason to drop our guard and not worry about it so much.
Sadly, when an adult is alone with a child, the adult is more at risk.
The fingerprinting can not be avoided because the plaintiff’s lawyer’s question “Why didn’t you … ” leads to big paydays to the lawyer and his client.
Ron: You are a pedophile, and I will not be convinced otherwise unless you pay a fee and undergo an extensive background check.
I don’t actually believe that, but that’s essentially what schools are saying when they adopt a policy like this. Hopefully you can see how some decent citizens would be a little offended by this.
I’d also say the question of what is a disqualifying offense needs clarifying. Maybe I got carried away when the Sox won the Series and picked up a drunk & disorderly – does that mean that, years later and despite no other legal troubles since, I am not allowed to take any part in my son’s education? Just because I’m not a pedophile doesn’t mean my past is an open book that I’m comfortable with anyone reading.
Last point for now: someone has to pay for these background checks and a quick Google search thinks a good nationwide criminal background check can cost $50-$150. Assume they’re $75 a head and you have a 6-team little league with 2 coaches per team. That’s $900 – not a negligible amount of money for some leagues. How much are you willing to spend for something that will turn up nothing because your son’s coach is almost certainly not a pedophile and even if he were there’s a good chance the background check won’t catch him anyway?
Child molesters are not allowed to be near kids anyway. Does anyone – anyone – think this is an argument that has a modicum of logic?
It makes sense when you start to realize that a system is in place already that excludes child molesters from schools. If that system fails, fix it. Do not add another system that doesn’t do anything and penalizes law abiding citizens.
You’re right. It all makes sense now.
Background checks are useless because they aren’t 100% effective. So abandon them. No need to check up on anyone.
Child molesters are not allowed to be near kids anyway. Really? You really think that is a valid answer? Following your logic. There will never be a repeat offender, because they are not allowed to be one. Right?
BTW, I never stated that I am for or against fingerprinting. I simply asked what method would be used if not fingerprinting. Driver’s license check works for me, so long as someone really checks it, and doesn’t just assume that the possession of a driver’s license means they are safe.
Gitarcarver, how can you be against fingerprinting? After all, it’s for the children™.
Child molesters are not allowed to be near kids anyway. Really? You really think that is a valid answer? Following your logic. There will never be a repeat offender, because they are not allowed to be one. Right?
No Ed, the logic is that if there is a system in place that is ineffective, it seems that many want to put another, costly, ineffective system on top of it instead of fixing the original system.
An analogy would be if your car breaks down, you wouldn’t go out and purchase another, non working vehicle. Doing so would not make any sense. Yet that is what the “fingerprinting” and “background checks” do.
They do not address the failure of the underlying system, and they do nothing to add any layer of protection for anyone.
Ok, so be part of the solution. What do you propose be done?
A solution to what problem? I wasn’t aware there was a wave of child molestations that need to be addressed.
-The overwhelming majority of people are not predators.
-There are measures in place to find and stop the small minority that are.
-And if a child is molested… it’s a terrible thing to happen, but not all tragedies are foreseeable. People with the benefit of hindsight want to think there’s always something that could have been done to prevent a tragedy, but it’s not true. By all means, take reasonable precautions, but we can’t definitively prevent 100% of all child abuse and if you use that as your goal then EVERY solution you can think of will seem like it isn’t doing enough.
Benji, it depends on how you define a wave. Your other points:
-Overwhelming majority? Of course. But that clearly is not the point: we all agree that .1% is a number that is way too large
-I don’t think there are enough measures in place to stop the problem we are trying to address: repeat offenders. I suspect a small number of people are the biggest criminals, many of which have already been caught and prosecuted
-Absolutely true that you can’t prevent all risk. I lose sleep at night knowing you are exactly correct, not just about this risk but risk in general. But, ultimately, would you be willing to have us all give our fingerprints to save one child from being molested. I would. Your best comeback would be to grab what I said earlier: would I require every kid to wear a helmet if it would save one life? You draw the line somewhere, I guess. I draw it somewhere after fingerprints.
–
“I lose sleep at night knowing you are exactly correct, not just about this risk but risk in general. ”
Then add this to your list: There is risk when giving personal information to institutions.
There has yet to be any mention of what would happen if volunteer’s background check resulted in a false positive. Report them to other authorities “just in case”? After all, it’s for the children™.
Absolutely. Chock, you are right. Everything comes with risks. It sucks. I don’t know how many “false positives” there have been in identifying convicted child molesters. Getting wrongfully accused would be just awful. A kid getting molested is beyond awful. We can survive a few false positives if it protects children. But I’m not sure we can survive many more “After all, it’s for the children™” jokes.
With finger prints, a false positive is much less likely to happen.
Also, just because the check doesn’t turn up a lot of offenders, doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t doing the job. It may dissuade some people from applying.
Also, what I haven’t seen mentioned is other types of felons. How about keeping people with drug convictions from volunteering at the high school?
It may dissuade some people from applying.
It may, except it doesn’t dissuade coaches and teachers that abuse kids.
Fingerprinting only gets more people into the legal system. It does not prevent anything further that a regular non-fingerprinting background check wouldn’t bring forth.
Secondly, it is great to think that it will prevent child abuse, but if that is the case, then how do you explain teachers and coaches that abuse kids? They are fingerprinted by contract and it doesn’t stop them. It doesn’t dissuade them from applying for the position and knowing they are on record doesn’t dissuade them from actually committing the crime.
How about keeping people with drug convictions from volunteering at the high school?
That might eliminate half the teachers. 😉 (just kidding)
But that is an issue that I raised and never got an answer. What “crime” is acceptable? Drug convictions? A DUI? Trespassing? Theft? How about an 18 year old that was convicted of sex with a minor who was his girlfriend at the time and now is his wife of 20 years? Is someone who was convicted of tax evasion good enough to volunteer?
What happens if the search turns up something that doesn’t have anything to do with the school or volunteering? For instance, what happens if the person has some unpaid parking tickets on the books? Should the state then use the information from the fingerprinting to come and arrest the person?
This type of invasive check simply a tangent of “guilty until proven innocent.” That’s not the way this country works.
The majority of child abuse occurs by family members. Therefore, all children should be kept away from their families.
Wow! We actually have a decent discussion on the internet! Somebody alert the media!
But I will say this – part of this argument is that this is a minimally invasive requirement and hey, even if it doesn’t screen out 100% of potential child molesters it is worth the effort if it screens out a few. But what if there are unintended consequences to this?
To start with, are child molesters really that stupid that they are likely to submit to background checks which will identify them as child molesters? Only the stupid ones will get caught, the smart ones not only won’t get caught but – now that we feel safer knowing these volunteers have been screened – they will be that much harder to catch because we aren’t looking as hard for them .
If you think about it, even a minimally invasive requirement will keep some good parents from volunteering on the grounds that volunteering is now just too much hassle. The more burdensome the requirements to volunteer become, the smaller the pool of volunteers will become. In order to volunteer, you are going to have to work at it, you are really going to *want* to volunteer. You are really going to *want* the opportunity to be alone with unsupervised little children in order to go through the process of being allowed to volunteer. And who wants more to be alone with unsupervised little children than a child molester?
I know, I’m probably crazy to think that by attempting to decrease the likelihood of harm from child molesters you may actually be increasing the risk. I may also be crazy to think that mandatory seatbelt laws might have made driving less safe or that outlawing alcohol may have increased the incidence of alcoholism or that mandating fuel and energy efficiency may have led to an increase in the use of fuel and energy or that sending free food to starving Africans may have led to more starving Africans……………..
[…] Walter Olson Posted by Darleen @ 4:33 pm Comments (0) | Trackback […]
Jerryskids
Your post is really an example of the unintended(?) consequences of treating every adult as a potential child molester – guilty until proven innocent. You wrote:
And who wants more to be alone with unsupervised little children than a child molester?
Do you understand how perverted that sentence is? My four daughters are now adults, but I was a SAHM for 16 years of their youth and I wanted to be at their schools volunteering because I wanted to participate in their lives. I did PTA and ran talent shows. I headed up fundraisers and worked in classrooms. I was a Band Booster mom for 13 high school years, everything from running the concession stand at football games to chaperoning the band when it toured out-of-state. I love working with kids, especially teens. But your blanket statement reduces parenting to warehousing and anyone that wants to get involved with their kids’ activities must have some ulterior motive.
And this fingerprinting of parents who volunteer creates a false sense of security. As if a molester who doesn’t have a record gives a rip about fingerprinting.