That seems rather far fetched - and if the concern is that anyone who has any contact with kids should get this same check...grocery store clerks? The guywho works at blockbuster?

I mean really - *anyone* could theoretically use a relationship to get closer to a child. You would have to background check *everyone* if that is your standard.

Of course, you know what my next comment is - can I see some stats for how often officials use their capacity as officials to create this relationship that they later exploit to molest children, and of course I would like to know what percentage of that number would be prevented by a background check.

You're not the first one who's asked this question in this thread.

My biggest problem relates to the questions of who has access to it, who is making the decisions on who can officiate and who can't, and where does that information get stored?

And if it's decided now that only sexual and violent crimes are relevant, but that information is stored, then it can be later decided that DUIs, petty theft, and fraud (for examples) are relevant. Maybe speeding tickets count, too? Domestic violence charges (as opposed to convictions), perhaps? All of this stuff is available on a basic criminal history.

And THAT is more or less what happened here in Portland with the official I'm aware of....that went to jail.

Those are very, very good questions.

Considering that most officiating groups are basically run by volunteers, I am not comfortable with private information about me being run by people who have no real training to deal with it, secure it, etc., etc.

For all we know, the chapter secretary is blabbing about what he finds out to anyone and everyone. Or leaving the data unsecure on his laptop that he forgot at the library, or sending it via email where it can easily be filtered.

I know this all sounds a little bit paranoid, and maybe it is - but the thing that bugs me is that there is, as far as I can see, and as far as anyone has ever been able to provide, ZERO objective reason to do any of this. I could live with it if it actually did some good, but I don't think it does ANY good at all.

Two questions:

1. Is there some reason to think that absent his position as an official, he would not have been able to find some child to befriend and molest?

2. Did he have a history that would have excluded him from officiating had a background check been done?

3. Does this happen a lot?

OK, so that is three questions...

You said there was no opportunity. I only provided a perfectly viable opportunity.
The real complaint should be that they're overcharging, not that they're doing it at all. Of course, they're probably using the excess to pay for some other program that the politicians use to buy votes.
You make it sound like doing taxes....it is not that complicated. The check is not the problem, it is the timing of the check. Have officials register 1-2 months before the season...plenty of time to do a simple check. Schedule them anyway and revoke thier schedule if something shows up.
There are proven problems. The fact that sex offenders continue to assualt kids is enough of a reason to do a background check. It's easy and it is (should be) cheap. There is no good reason to not do it for the benefit it provides....even if it only saves a few victims the experience.
The assoications don't get the data here at all...they get an OK or not OK from the state activities association. The checks are done by the same people who do it for all school employees.
And, if you were a child molestor, you'd be perfectly willing to tell anyone that asked?
As I said before. You have the choice to meet the requirements of the job or look for a different job.
And those are the same people who think that everything is a consipiracy.I cut it out becasue I don't have data....but I do have direct knowledge of at least one incident that happened right here...by a guy I knew through officiating. That is all that I need to know. It happens. And this guy shouldn't be allowed to officiate anywhere again...and how is a place expected to stop him from doing so without a background check?

It basically comes down to the fact that the school system is responsible for protecting the safety of the children under their custody so far as it is feasable. When easily obtainable information that could have prevented a crime was not referenced, the school has not upheld thier responsibility.

His position put him in a place to befriend
Don't know but it will keep him from having that avenue open to him again somewhere else.
Isn't once too much?

So your basic position is that as long as someone somewhere did something then, tens of thousands of others people's right to simple privacy can and should be waived, whether they like it or not?

Does this apply to all crimes, or only those that involve kids?

Well, that is not all *I* need to know - if you want to argue that it is reasonable to pry into my private life, an anecdote about someone somewhere once doing something somewhere once is not really adequate to convice me. I want to see some data, I want to know the scope of the problem your prying is going to solve, and how it will solve it, and what the repurcussions are.

Granted, those kinds of anecdotes are (sadly) adequate to convince the emotional hyterics to go ahead and trample my privacy, but it isn't something we should be proud of, but rather something we should lament. Just another little slice of libery cut away to provide some fictional sense of security.

Not really - the fact that he is a human being who lives in a society puts him in place to befriend kids. He could have walked into the gym and sat down next to some kid and befriended him, or it is even likely that he is already friends with lots of kids, like his relatives.
Barn door, except this barn has no sides, roof, or door for that matter.

Officiating does not provide anyone with any special access to kids - that is the danger, not the fact that you are there and kids are there - that happens everytime I walk into my local grocery store.

Emotive nonsense. Of course once is too much - but that doesn't mean that any all imposition on others (99.999% of whom are perfectly innocent) is justified as long as it can stop one single instance of a crime being committed.

That same logic can (and has) been used to justify any kind of restriction of liberty or invasion of privacy. The reality is that bad things will happen. We don't want to live in a police state (and in fact most police states still ahve bad things happening anyway - generally much MORE bad things), so we have presumably decided that there should be some kind of balancing mechanism for how we restrict the innocent majority in order to protect ourselves from the criminal minority.

That balancing mechanism involves some sort of *objective* measure of risk weighed against the imposition the "fix" imposes on everyone else, and the effectiveness of the fix. So far, nobody has been able to EVER provide a single piece of data to measure the risk of NOT doing background checks on officials, or shown how the fix will reduce that risk.

And this should be easy to find, if in fact there is a problem. People have been officiating without background checks for decades - surely if this is a problem, there ought to be lots of data about it, right? Lots of police reports of officials who abuse their position to molest kids?

Right?

If some self select exclusion, that's their problem. They probably wear tinfoil hats too.

I'd bet that the errors are FAR fewer than the number of people it properly excludes....and that the errors are generally corrected very easily.

I would too...but in the opposite direction of what I'm guessing you're assuming.
Your fears of Big Brother are not justified.

It is rather ironic that you are accusing those who ask for some data and justification for background checks of over-reacting to a imagined issue.

Tin foil hats indeed. Your solution is to solve a problem that doesn't exist - and if it did exist, it would only provide the illusion of protection anyway.

No....officiating game gives an official acess that a fan wouldn't have had. They have repeated contacts with the same kids in a trusting environment that allows the offender to develop a trust with the child.
So, since you can't close all access, don't bother with any...particularly the most likely or the most easily addressed?
Sure it does. Positions of authority, even if in limited venues, give access that the random person does not have.
Citation please? You might be suprised to find that he number of offenders is a bit higher than 0.001%.

Do you not think that the whole idea of a background check was started by having kids molested only to find out that the teacher/coach/referee had a record of the same behavior elsewhere that would have been easily discovered with a simple background check?

Camron, I would argue that if it only has happened once or twice, it may in fact not be worth the burden of background checks (recognizing the level of burden they represent is under debate).

Legislation is often debated with this in mind, "if it even saves one life...." Well, with this particular topic, they could apply all sorts of draconian measures to ensure no child is harmed by an official. Let's put GPS tags on every one so we know who was where and when. Hey, if it stops even one instance, isn't it worth it?

Once is too much, but it's not a debate ending argument for anything.

Speed limits get the same treatment, "if it saves even one life...." Well, not really, we could virtually eliminate traffic accidents with a 20 mph limit everywhere combined with very heavy traffic enforcement. But it would bring commerce to a virtual halt.

Obviously background checks for officials isn't nearly as draconian as a 20 mph speed limit on the interstates. It all needs to be weighed, though, and if the benefit is just one or two, we can debate whether it's worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars that will be spent on background checks nation wide.

Personally, I'm not convinced it would even prevent one; not in ways a simple sex-registry check wouldn't cover. But then again, I seem to be in the minority by thinking only sex-related crimes should be relevant for this particular issue.

No. I think the teachers and coaches got started that way. Officials got thrown in when someone realized we weren't included in the background checks. IOW, it didn't matter that the problem wasn't there, only that we weren't included in the solution.

It's a warm-fuzzy that does more harm than good, IMO.

I doubt that anyone has been harmed by being asked to submit to a basic background check....not a full investigation into your full life including what books you checked out from the library 20 years ago.

Anyone that is denied officiating because of what is revealed on the backgorund check can only blame themselves. Bad choices have consequences. Just because they'd like them to be forgotten about doesn't mean they should. When certain lines are crossed, there are opportunities that should no longer exist for that person...ever.