[hackerspaces] Sex Offenders at a 'Space

[David Cake]

FWIW, I’ve dealt with a similar situation, and I would allow them membership. I’ve been on convention boards in which we allowed sex offenders to attend, and that situation is if anything more problematic (conventions have more of a ‘party’ atmosphere than most hackerspace events). You have essentially no reason to think that they are particularly likely to reoffend (it was a single incident, they haven’t reoffended in several years, they’d basically be pretty crazy to do so in a space where the board have been informed), and the reasons for joining a hackerspace have nothing to do with the crime.

And I’d very much say that good governance is NOT to make the sort of gut feeling judgements that Wilco is suggesting below. Have a consistent ruling or procedure, and apply it, without trying to second guess the psychology of the offender, or make your board try to perform a psychological investigation you are not qualified to perform, which opens you up to various forms of liability (including being sued for discrimination in some circumstances).
Edward Platt’s suggestions of a code of conduct, rules for supervision of minors, etc. sounds good to me.

I’d allow them to be a member, ask them to observe some restrictions on their behaviour if your organisation has times when children are likely to be there. Perhaps you might want to inform guardians of regular underage female users of the space.

But regardless of whether you want to take a defensive, risk averse strategy and not admit them, or take a more open strategy that supports rehabilitation as I suggest above - do not put your board members in the position of having to make psychological judgements or otherwise assess the likelihood of reoffending generally (or any other kind of professional assessment) that they are not qualified to make.

Regards

David

On 11 Feb 2015, at 5:04 am, Wilco Baan Hofman <wilco at baanhofman.nl> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> My first question would be if he was 27 at the time, or 27 now. 2007 is 8 years ago and people at 19 are very different from 27, plus the age difference would smaller and it would be easier to accept that the person changed by now.. I might want to talk with this person to find out how he feels about this issue and see if this person would even be a fit for a hackerspace..
> 
> If this happened at 27, then my answer would be no, not welcome.
> 
> It would be difficult to trust somebody like that with 24/7 access to the space either way.
> 
> -- Wilco
> 
> 
> 
> On 10/02/15 21:23, Steve Bowman wrote:
>> Hi there,
>> 
>> The board of our 'space has recently received a notification from a Parole Officer (PO) that a sex offender is interested in visiting and possibly joining our organization. We asked for further clarification on the crime and the response was as follows (some info redacted for privacy)
>> 
>> In regards to the offense that he is on supervision for, it involved Mr. XXX (27 years old) inappropriately touching a 13 year old female neighbor.  This occurred on several occasions in 2007 before he was arrested.  He is required to register with the XX Sex Offender Registry Program for his entire lifetime.
>> 
>> Our organizational structure allows us to refuse admission to a new member for any reason. This option has never been exercised before.
>> 
>> Based on the size of our organization, and local statistics (Sex offender/unit population), it's likely that we have a few sex offenders in our membership already - statistically at least. We haven't and do not plan on conducting background checks The only reason this topic is being discussed is since we received notification from the PO, which is legally required from them based on the nature and severity of crime.
>> 
>> A few details specific to our organization that may be important to this discussion. We do not allowed members under 18. But many members bring their kids with them. The kids must always be supervised but, being kids, do get away once in a while. All members have 24/7 access to our facility
>> 
>> So my question is - have other 'spaces dealt with this situation in the past? If yes, how? Or if does come up, how would you deal with it in the future?
>> 
>> If we do let this person in, should we notify all members? That might start a witch hunt or get this person treated in a unfair manner. Unfair is obviously open to individual interpretations.
>> 
>> I welcome and appreciate feedback from past experiences and/or personal opinions.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Steve
>> 
>> P.S. Is there way to search this mailing list archive so I can consult previous discussions on this and other topics. I can download the archive and implement a search function but maybe there is a better way already...
>> 
>> 
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