[hackerspaces] Sex Offenders at a 'Space

[Edward L Platt]

If, like me, you care about protecting minor members in your space, you
should be focusing on making sure minors are supervised. The unknown sexual
predators are far more of a risk than the know ones.

If you care about avoiding litigation, make sure to apply your decisions
evenly. If you ban some people and not others, you are effectively
endorsing everyone you don't ban, and again, registered sex offenders are
not the most likely people to commit abuse and assaults. Also, as I
mentioned before, if you receive any public funds, banning sex offenders is
a civil rights violation:
https://www.aclu-nm.org/10th-circuit-upholds-aclu-challenge-to-albuquerque-sex-offender-ban/2012/01/

If you're putting more effort into this email thread and addressing
specific registered sex offenders than you are into implementing and
evaluating safe space policies for minors, you're doing little more than
puffing your own sense of moral superiority. It's sad, but hilarious to see
so many hackers reinventing and fervently supporting security theater.

-Ed

On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 10:01 AM, Randall Arnold <randall.arnold at texrat.net>
wrote:

>  The point's been made though: hackerspaces are not equipped to solve
> problems of mental illness.  Who among the leadership is going to judge
> whether or not the offender will repeat, and accept the liability?  How do
> you tell if he's "still a creeper"?  Is the determining factor for "kicking
> his ass out" another molestation, this time in your hackerspace?
>
>
> Sorry for risking What If recursion.
>
>
> Anyway, like Matt said, there are mistakes and then there are 'mistakes'.
> One has to draw a line somewhere, and I go with the thread consensus on
> this one.
>
>
> Randy
>
> On February 18, 2015 at 1:48 AM Derek H <dh405okc at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  I'm really happy for you and I. We're lucky, Matt. We aren't afflicted
> with a mental illness that causes inappropriate sexual attraction to those
> who are incapable of forming consent. That's fantastic for us, but I
> recognize that some are not as lucky as I in that matter. Perhaps, Matt,
> the only reason you haven't molested a child is because you're not mentally
> ill in that particular way? None of us can know for certain how we would
> behave if we were in someone else's shoes.
>
> At any rate, my only point is that the guy may well have gotten his life
> together and his mental state under control. As we are all just collections
> of flaws in a roughly bipedal shape, maybe we can be human even to those
> who have screwed up?
>
> That said, if he's still a creeper, kick his ass out. Nobody has time for
> that kind of disruption and risk.
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-- 
Edward L. Platt
http://elplatt.com
http://civic.mit.edu/users/elplatt
http://i3detroit.com
@elplatt <http://twitter.com/elplatt>

This electronic mail message was sent from my desktop personal computer.
Please forgive any long-winded, overly-prosaic ramblings.
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