posted
Xavier and I just finished watching a movie called The Woodsman starring Kevin Bacon.
It brought up an interesting issue about registered pedophiles. In the movie, a co-worker of the paroled pedophile (Bacon) released information to the other workers regarding his conviction.
My question is, do we have a right to be informed if we are working with someone who has been convicted of a sex crime? I do understand we have a right to know if they move into our area, but are there any clean cut rules about the workplace?
Should we know if the co-worker we just invited home to dinner to meet the family is a registered sex offender?
Sidebar: I found this website, which I believe looks exactly like the one the co-worker used in the movie.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Why only pedophiles? I'd be far more worried if there were someone who raped adult women in my work place.
Seems slightly discriminatory.
(And, I personally would feel that you have the right to know if any person who previously has commited a violent crime is in your workplace.)
Posts: 87 | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote: My question is, do we have a right to be informed if we are working with someone who has been convicted of a sex crime? I do understand we have a right to know if they move into our area, but are there any clean cut rules about the workplace?
Criminal convictions in court are public records, unless the criminals are minors. So you have the "right to be informed", broadly speaking, if a co-worker is any kind of criminal.
I assume you mean, are employers obliged to research it and tell you if co-workers are sex offenders?
I've never heard of such a law.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Employers might have trouble doing that. Even though convictions are public records, the employer likely knows about it from the application, which might be covered by privacy laws.
Co-workers deriving information from public records, however, probably are not limited in that way legally. Harrassment laws would still apply, depending on what's done with the info.
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quote:I assume you mean, are employers obliged to research it and tell you if co-workers are sex offenders?
I've never heard of such a law.
Depending on what you mean by "obliged," there's evidence that they are. Several employers have been successfully sued for negligent hiring because they hire people with a history of violence without warning co-workers. The more prominent such cases involve security guards, which can be easily distinguished from the general case. But I seem to recall some that involved non-security workers. I'll see if I can find some.
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posted
True, but that's in the broad terms of an employers' obligation to provide a safe workplace. There is no law requiring employers to inform about sexual offenders specifically AFAIK. Although of course, some states could have a law like that.
Schools and daycares are of course forbidden to hire convicted pedophiles (I would guess sexual offenders in general?), so the issue of informing coworkers is moot for them.
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posted
And some states are now providing public information about both the residence and work site for released sex offenders to neighborhoods and businesses. The greater the magnitude of the offense and likelihood of reoffending, the greater the coverage of information going out to the public.
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posted
Consider it another reason NOT to commit a crime. Even after you get out of prison you still have to pay.
I don't know if a memo should be passed around. It'd be hard for most people to read "John Smith was convicted for raping a woman a couple years ago and just got out of prison" and still treat the person like a human being. I wouldn't really care about knowing personally, but then I'm not worried about a sex crime being committed against me. But most of my friends are female, and I'd want all of them to know for sure. I think a sex crime SHOULD brand you for life.
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I have issues with registered sex offenders not being differentiated, as I believe I brought up in another thread. In many states, there's no information given about whether the offender had consentual sex with an underage girl, or made a single mistake while a minor which he will never repeat, or is a violently dangerous repeat rapist. In TX, it varies county to county.
Many states do require "community notification" when a high-risk sex offender moves in, but that can mean many things and be effective or ineffective. Plus, many low-risk offenders are good citizens and register faithfully, enduring harassment and discrimination in "retribution" for one mistake they made, while some high-risk offenders don't register after a move at all, and it's hard for police to keep track of the registration process.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Tell me about it. And I've seen the discrimination get pretty awful.
I believe in repentance and forgiveness if someone stops comitting a sin and tries to make retribution as best they can (including complying with police investigations and serving jail time or whatever.) If they do it once or twice and realize it's a mistake and don't do it again (and again, I'm not talking about violent rape here, I'm talking about fairly minor offenses, like statuatory rape), I don't think that the punishment is in proportion to the crime.
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posted
I saw this Law & Order episode a while back and a sex offender, having been paroled, moved into a neighborhood. One of the residents caught wind of it and started to distribute fliers to everyone, including his neighbors and workplace. Threats turned to violence and I believe he was killed in a mob. Never once displaying any deviant behavior toward another child in the neighborhood.
In that particular case, the offender was just trying to make it in his life after prison, trying to become a decent citizen. I think that's sad.
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posted
I disagree with any notification of sex offenders in the area or workplace. If they are safe enough to be released, they are safe enough to deserve their privacy. Seriously, why are we letting out violent repeat rapists or pedophiles (not meaning someone who had consensual sex with a 17 or even a 15 year old) into the general population at all? I have huge problems with the way the legal and prison systems work, but I think it might actually be a suitable punishment for sex offenders.
Posts: 1364 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I actually agree with the last part of your post Danzig. I really hate the idea that repeat offenders, pedophiles, etc "serve their time" then get released where they could rape me or molest my kids.
posted
I agree with that, too, actually. If they're such a high risk to offend again, they shouldn't be out in society.
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posted
In the movie I referred to, The Woodsman, the main character moved into an apartment right across the street from an elementary school (he had an excellent view from his living room window). That landlord was the only one who would accept his money. He later told his court appointed therapist that he had already followed a young girl at the mall.
Come on! There is no reason why the court couldn't have found him a better location.
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posted
...except that most apartments won't allow registered sex offenders to live in their complexes. Sure, that's to an unrealistic degree, but it does happen. A lot.
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Was he a convicted pedophile (in the full sense of the word)? There was no reason he should be out of prison.
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Someone out on parole, though, doesn't get to use the "I've served my time and should be left alone now" argument. It's an argument with a lot of merit to it, which is why I pretty much opposed mandatory civil commitment for ex-cons when it got popular.
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posted
Every company I've ever worked for has required a criminal background check. And we did run into one applicant who was found to have been convicted and did time for something (I don't remember what it was now) and hadn't disclosed it on the application. The PTB's used that lack of disclosure as their public reason for not hiring, but I heard through the grapevine later that the real reason was fear of possibly being involved in a repeat situation.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
The problem with sex crimes is the extremely high recidivism rate. Convicted murderers have a much lower rate of repeating crimes than do convicted sex criminals.
While studies seem to vary on actual numbers, some groups apparently have recidivism rates as high as 77%.
quote:The long term follow-up study referred to above included a control group of non-sexual criminals. The highest rate of recidivism (77%) was for those with previous sexual offences, who selected boy victims outside the family and who were never married.3
Short term studies found a much lower rate - 13.4% but it was only for four-five years. Longer term studies found this:
quote:A long term follow-up study of child molesters in Canada found that 42% were reconvicted of sexual or violent crime during the 15-30 year follow-up period.2
What's the answer? Lock any pedophile or violent rapist up for life? Personally, I'd be for that. But our justice system isn't set up that way, and they usually get much less than life without parole.
So when they get out, what are our obligations to their personal rights vs. the public's right to be protected, both at home and in the workplace?
I think I've said before my mother is an HR executive with over 30 years experience and she is beginning to transition into a career as a consultant. She gets called in to investigate sexual harassment charges and the like. Her official recommendation to every employer that hires her is never, never hire anyone with a violent or sexual criminal past. To do so only opens the door for that employer to be sued if something happens.
So think about it - we've released these people, we've made it difficult for them to find a place to live, and we've made it difficult to impossible for them to find work. How is that type of existence better than prison?
I don't know the answers. But with documented studies showing such high rates of recidivism I know I don't want to take the chances of living next to or working with someone with that type of criminal past.
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posted
People need to maintain boundaries around their kids with all adults.
I think getting to weirded out about convicted pedophiles give people a false sense of safety- most pedophiles are not prosecuted and many that are cannot be convicted due to lack of evidence.
I didn't see the movie, I don't think I will. But if I were a pedophile, it would seem a good strategy to move to a place near a registered pedophile where everyone is watching out for that guy.
The movie Brigham City also illustrates something that happens a lot in Mormondom at least. It was a serial killer and not a pedophile, but it is the fruit of inside-out prejudice. If we think someone is trustworthy because they "look like us" we are turning off our common sense regarding them.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:People need to maintain boundaries around their kids with all adults.
I agree. Unfortunately, it's not always that easy.
Sometimes, the pedophile is a relative - father, brother, uncle, step-father, grandfather, cousin. Or the pedophile could be a friend of the family - someone you've known for years and years and assume is safe.
Yes, keep your children safe, but also watch when others, whom you trust, are around your kids. Don't watch just for the strangers.
Get yourself educated so you know what the signs and symptoms are, and teach your children how to protect themselves in age-appropriate ways.
Keep the lines of communication open with them, and love them.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I talked to my mom about this last night, and she said it's definitely a thorny issue. The obligation of the employer to provide a safe workplace is huge, perhaps, she said, even too strict - often employers are held responsible for things they could not possibly have known or prevented. On the other hand, the rights of the employee to privacy is also a big obligation, and has gotten even more stringent with HIPAA.
The easiest solution, she said, is don't hire them. She said she would advise any employer that the potential risk of hiring a convicted violent felon (any violent felon, not just sex crimes) is just too high, because if anything happens the employer is liable for not providing a safe work environment. So, her recommendation is to ask if they have any felony convictions on the application, don't hire them if the answer is yes, and fire them immediately if you later discover they lied about it.
Keep in mind Mom's job is to look out for the interest of the employer, so while this may sound harsh, that's her obligation to her clients - to advise them how best to avoid potential problems.
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posted
I want to know if anyone in my workplace has been convicted of a violent or sexual crime. My work group is very social and invite each other over all the time. They trust everyone, including the new people. What if one day they decided to invite the newbie over for dinner and later find out that person molested their daughter that night?
That sounds pretty scary to me.
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quote: What's the answer? Lock any pedophile or violent rapist up for life?
Yeah, absolutely. IMO anyone who does that has just checked out of society. I truly believe a violent sex offender can't be rehabilitated.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Personally, I'm for applying the death penalty to violent sex offenders and repeat sex offenders. But locking them up for life is almost as good.
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quote: In the movie I referred to, The Woodsman, the main character moved into an apartment right across the street from an elementary school (he had an excellent view from his living room window).
The way the discussion about this went, it sounded like there was nothing illegal about this. I thought laws limiting where pedophiles could live were very common. In Florida, they can't live within 1,000 feet of a school, daycare, etc. I'd have to check, but I think bus stops might also be included.
The city of Oviedo (just NE of Orlando) recently voted to up that to 2,500 feet. A map with 2,500 foot radius circles around all these locations was included in the paper. Pedophiles don't have a whole lot of places left to live in Oviedo anymore. edit: From the Orlando Sentinel
quote:[Oviedo]'s new ordinance forbids sex offenders with young victims from living within 2,500 feet of day-care centers, parks, churches, schools, playgrounds and libraries.
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