Background Checks

[Hapkid0ist]

O.K., there was a story on the news a while back about gang members joining the armed forces to get the military training and bring it back to the stree. I admit that I never caught the actual story but the clip got me thinking. This on top of hearing about terrorist taking MA training before 911 and other campaigns of theirs. Do these issues put a moral responsability on us as instructors and professional martial artists to know the back grounds of those we train. Should we do background checks, or is it something we have a right to do?
I have my predisposed thoughts, but what does everyone else believe.
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[mantis]

u cant possibly ensure how people will use the knowledge you give them.

 

[Drac]

O.K., there was a story on the news a while back about gang members joining the armed forces to get the military training and bring it back to the street.

Certain gang factions have their own book on self defense against cops..A DEA agent turned up a few pages from a drug sting..He was told by the "banger" this is part of a 200 pg book...The "homies" are all drawn as clean cut, in shape individulas and the cops all sport Nazi armbands

I admit that I never caught the actual story but the clip got me thinking. This on top of hearing about terrorist taking MA training before 911 and other campaigns of theirs. Do these issues put a moral responsability on us as instructors and professional martial artists to know the back grounds of those we train. Should we do background checks, or is it something we have a right to do

Many perspective employers require a backround check available from the local County Sheriffs officer for a nominal fee..

 

[Carol]

Should we do background checks, or is it something we have a right to do?

Check with your legal counsel before you do so.

You may be able to perform background checks, but you will be bound by state law as well as federal (FCRA) statutes as to how you go about the checks and what you do with the info.

You have some freedom where you are not entering in to an employment agreement with people that you train, but you open yourselves up to other legal risks.

If you take a person's social security number off of your billing paperwork and asked a local policeman to run a criminal background check on a person, you may have committed a federal crime.

A short counsel with a qualified attorney in your state can save major headaches down the road. The legal fees and bad publicity alone from a court case is enough to sink many small businesses, even if they receive a favorable decision from the judge.

Please step carefully.

 

[Andrew Green]

The day we all start doing background checks on martial arts students to make sure they are not terrorists will be a sad day indeed, and terrorist will trulely have won a victory over us.

TERRORist, if you live in fear of them they won, even if they do nothing more.

 

[shesulsa]

Background checks give limited information that isn't always useful and isn't always as revealing as we want them to be.

 

[tshadowchaser]

I have taken known gang members into my schools before and watched them become good people who went on to college and to help out their communities. Why should we say theat these gang members can never have a chance at learning respect,etc.
On the other hand I have seen what where supposed to be upstanding members of the community use their knowledge to batter their wifes and children. So what good would the background check have done as they did not have records befor they trained
I have had a few people I most likely should have done a better check on their backgrounds, but they didn't stay long enough to learn much anyway

 

[trueaspirer]

No matter what background checks you do, you never really know. The best and pretty much only thing you can do is keep an alert eye out. If a student looks wrong somehow, keep a closer eye. If you can, terminate the contract, and make up an excuse, if you think its thast dangerous. However, it is not necessarily your responsibility to catch all dangerous people coming through your dojang for training.