[hackerspaces] Sex Offenders at a 'Space

[David Cake]

On 17 Feb 2015, at 9:31 pm, Ben Brown <ben at generik.ca> wrote:

> Speaking from an organization's standpoint, that sounds like a liability lawsuit waiting to happen -- admitting someone who is a known recently-paroled sex offender, volunteering to 'police' them (essentially taking responsibility for their behaviour), and if something bad does happen, your directors and your space are totally screwed.

	You might be right - given the litigiousness of US culture - but you might also be opening yourself up to discrimination suits as well.
	If you are concerned about legal liability, it is a a good idea to get the advice of a lawyer. It is not good governance to make decisions based on layman’s opinions about legal issues (which doesn’t mean you should always take a lawyers advice at face value, not all lawyers are great and a lawyers job is to recognise legal risk, not to balance it against other factors).

	But if you feel you know what your membership wants, you should probably do what they want.

	I personally think refusing entrance based on a sole offence 7 years ago is an overreaction. Quite possibly you have other members who have committed thefts or crimes of violence in the last 7 years, but they are not required to inform you.

	Cheers

		David

> 
> Usually I'm one of the first people out of the gate for giving people a second chance, but at times I believe the risks outweigh the benefits. Our space allows members as young as 16, and we have numerous public events involving kids. In this guy's case, it doesn't sound like a drunken public piss or a couple teetering on the age of consent. If our BoD didn't have a problem with that (and I highly doubt they wouldn't), our membership certainly would.
> 
> Ben
> 
> On 2/17/2015 7:33 AM, B F wrote:
>> That echos my feelings exactly.  I won't get involved in nitty-gritty of the discussion of who to or not to admit because it's outside my experience.
>> 
>> However I know of a case from twenty or thirty years back (which was BEFORE things really got out of hand), in which a man ALMOST got in trouble because a girl he was tutoring mentioned to someone, "He touched me."  He HAD touched her -- on the HAND!  Fortunately, he was able to dodge that bullet.  (This is not apocryphal.  I know the names involved, but, of course, won't repeat them here.)
>> 
>> Child molestation is a real problem.  I, for one, would probably have the gut reaction of lynching someone I caught molesting a child.  I think children (especially) need ample protection against predators.
>> 
>> But what our society has only recently come to realize it the "con man" (or child molester in this case) is the person you LEAST suspect of it.  He (or she -- to be clear) is not the ugly, dirty, disgusting person of the movies, but rather the church deacon, the camp counselor, the scout leader -- the person you trust your child to.  (This is not to say all such people are child molesters, of course.)  Child molesters gravitate to positions of responsibility over children.  That SHOULD have been a no-brainer, but when people see a wholesome, clean-cut person, somebody "just like you and me," they assume that he is safe to leave in charge of one's child.
>> 
>> My point is that if there are child molesters in your space, you probably won't know it soon enough to matter.  When a person is a known child molester -- and I don't mean a person caught peeing in a back alley, or falsely reported for an amber alert -- you have a head start.  I would think it perfectly appropriate to admit that person but to inform him that he is NEVER to be alone with children in your space, and to enforce that.  Since his record is public, it would be acceptable to inform everyone in your space of the fact.
>> 
>> - BF
>> 
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 6:14 AM, ITechGeek <itg at itechgeek.com> wrote:
>> Actually I feel the same about the sex offender registry laws as I do about the tax laws, both need MAJOR overhaul.
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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