Sex offenders in the MA school

ArmorOfGod

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http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/061805/met_4437896.shtml

That is a story that happened a few miles from me at a local martial arts school about two years ago.

Here is a bit of it:

Authorities arrested a convicted sex offender Friday who they said was violating his probation by teaching at a North Augusta martial arts academy.
Christopher Marshall Banks, 54, of the 4700 block of Luckeys Bridge Road in Thomson, was jailed at the McDuffie County jail Friday afternoon on a probation violation, Augusta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Danny Craig said.
Mr. Craig said a confidential informant told his office that Mr. Banks had been teaching at Southern Tang Soo Do martial arts studio for several months.
Mr. Craig said Mr. Banks served six years in the Georgia prison system for convictions on child molestation and aggravated child molestation charges in 1990 and was scheduled to serve probation until late 2007

It was quiet a mess around town here. The guy was teaching tsd at a school and the head instructor did not know that he was a convicted sex offender. The local tv station snuck a camera in and filmed the sex offender teaching and got him arrested that day. According to the tv, there was supposed to be a sleep-over at the school that night.

That brings me to my question: does anyone here go to a martial arts school that checks its adult students and instructors to find if they are convicted sex offenders?

AoG
 

tshadowchaser

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I have to admit that i do not check on the background of everyone who walks through my doors.
That being said I also live in a small town where everyone damn near knows everyone else and I have confidence that I would be informed rather quickly if an offender came into the class.
This may be a small town but we do have a large registry of offenders for the size of the town I think the state ships them hear from the cities
Many towns people keep a close watch on the internet at those registered as offenders

Now a child molester I would not want in my class but if a person is registered because they got caught urinating an the town hall steps that is a different story even if both have to register
 

IcemanSK

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I deal only with children in my program. I am the sole instructor in a city community center program. As a city employee, a background check was done on me when I was hired. I'm glad for that.

Also, when I joined the MA organization I belong to, they did a background check on me as well. Since I came in from the outside, they want to know that I'm a good risk for them. I represent them, they want to know they can trust me. As far as I know, they are the only MA organization to require this. I think it's a good thing.

If I had an adult teach with me, they would need to be fingerprinted by the City as well. It's not my rule, it's the City's...but I like it.
 

Kacey

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The Y didn't do a check on me... on the other hand, they know that I'm a school teacher, and that the licensure process includes a fingerprint check against the national database; they do a lot of work with the schools, and don't check people who were already checked.
 

Mariachi Joe

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At an open house to recruit people for the instructors academy Master Russell Cliegg of ussd made it very clear he did not want any former or current sex offenders to apply. What measures he took to keep them out I don't know.
 

charyuop

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I personally never liked how USA treat this subject. My point of view is to long to explain and it would end up out of topic, but I have always found the way a sex offender is treated in the USA is barbaric. Some of the sex offenders really deserve being shut out of society, but unfortunately here there is no distincion. No blue, red or green colors, all the same colour.


Sorry had to vent it.
 

terryl965

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I do a background check on all instructor before they teach at my school, as far as adults I have never attempted to do a background check on them but maybe I should be doing that just to make sure.
 

tellner

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There's also the question of what is considered a sex offender. Quite a number of cases involve people who have been convicted of public urination. The dangly bit was showing. It's a sex offense. The fourteen year old who took nude pictures of herself and spammed them to everyone she knew via cell phone is a sex offender. So is a seventeen year old with a fifteen year old boyfriend in many states. Little distinction is made. Once these offenders are released there's the question of what happens next. Because of laws governing their movements many find that they can not legally walk let alone live anywhere in entire counties. Unfortunately, the terms of their probation forbid them from leaving town.

The Law in its majesty is often insane.
 

tellner

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Well, I have to say I REALLY don't see the point of that. A sleep over at the school?

Gets the kids out of the parents' hair for a night. It's a team-building thing for the kids. And it lets the responsible teenagers practice their babysitting skills :)
 

bushidomartialarts

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Gets the kids out of the parents' hair for a night. It's a team-building thing for the kids. And it lets the responsible teenagers practice their babysitting skills :)

Yep. We do that a couple times a year, and a 'parents night out' pizza and movie night monthly til midnight. It's a fun time, helps with community and retention, and makes enough money for my wife and I to go out on a nice date the following weekend.

To address the original post. I have a PI friend who does a background check on any of my employees, though not on my volunteers nor my adult students.

If I did discover an applicant was a sex offender, I'd need to know the details before deciding if it was a dealbreaker. Like some have already said, public urination and poor timing of a legitimate relationship can go on the record as a sex offense. I don't see any reason either or those would disqualify a good person. An actual child molester, on the other hand, would require lots of self control on my part to get out the door under his own steam.
 

Flying Crane

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There's also the question of what is considered a sex offender. Quite a number of cases involve people who have been convicted of public urination. The dangly bit was showing. It's a sex offense. The fourteen year old who took nude pictures of herself and spammed them to everyone she knew via cell phone is a sex offender. So is a seventeen year old with a fifteen year old boyfriend in many states. Little distinction is made. Once these offenders are released there's the question of what happens next. Because of laws governing their movements many find that they can not legally walk let alone live anywhere in entire counties. Unfortunately, the terms of their probation forbid them from leaving town.

The Law in its majesty is often insane.


Yeah, I gotta agree with this as well. Not every "sex offense" had anything to do with children. Not every sex offender is a pedophile.

Here is California, they recently were working on some new laws tightening the restrictions on the movements and living requirements of released sex offenders. The distance they had to live from a school or church or other "child" focused centers was increased substantially. Problem is, in a city like San Francisco, churches and schools are all over the place. It makes it effectively impossible for a convicted offender to live in the city at all. Sometimes if the person was a long-time resident of the city, they have to sell their home that they have owned for many years, and effectively move out into the sticks, just to be the requisite distance from schools and whatnot, and this can make it impossible to commute in to their jobs. It just becomes an unworkable situation, and the person is essentially banished from the city.

The US legal system determines that once a person has served his time for his conviction, he should not be continuously punished for his crime. His debt has been paid and he is supposed to be free to get on with life. The problem with sex offenders is that there is this continued monitoring and restricting of their movements. It is intended to keep them away from children who might be easy targets, which is not necessarily relavant to any individual case (remember: as I stated earlier, not all sex offenders are pedophiles) but it can be overdone and becomes in essence a lifetime of continuous punishment. They are unable to establish any semblance of a normal life, with the ability to support themselves and be a contributing member of society.

Now, I am not trying to soften the heinousness of the actions of any pedophilic sexual predators. That's a pretty heinous thing. But the system does tend to treat all sex offenders equally, even tho their offenses are often far from equal. It is a pretty messed up system.
 

Kacey

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Yeah, I gotta agree with this as well. Not every "sex offense" had anything to do with children. Not every sex offender is a pedophile.

This is true - as is the rest of your post, but this is the part that is, I think, most relevant to the discussion. I would hope that anyone who is hiring would investigate past a positive result on a fingerprint or other database search for just this reason - just as I would hope they would investigate further on a positive result on a drug test; I recall clearly when a friend of mine was tested by the Navy before the effect of certain OTC meds and poppy seeds was well-known, and came up positive because of a muffin he ate for breakfast. In today's world, however, too many people are judged on that first result, instead of people taking the time to ask the difficult questions.

As this relates to MA instruction - or anything else dealing with children - there are, no doubt, good people out there who have been convicted of a "sex crime" such as the ones FC mentioned, who will be forever barred from instructing by people who don't ask those questions... and there will be others whose backgrounds are not checked, who will, unfortunately, offend again. It's not a fair world... so it's up to us to do the best we can to create equity for those around us.
 

jim777

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Actually, that is a very common practice at commercial ma schools now.

AoG

I had no idea, really. My wife wouldn't sleep if the kids were all somewhere else anyway, so I doubt we'd be up for it if they did this at our school. I have to say we implicitly trust the instructors in out school though, so I can see how this could be a large concern. I'd have to assume everyone trusts the instructors at their own schools to follow the ideals of integrity, courtesy and self control. Certainly something to think about...

jim
 

Tez3

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We have been checked through the UK CRB scheme ( with the police) because our club is on an Army camp the CO of the unit insisted because we tech children and young people. We'd both been security cleared anyway but it's reassuring for the parents.
 

Shaderon

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I think our club does a background check on people as part of the Child protection course they have to pass in order to become an instructor, I'm not sure of that so I'd have to check but it seems pretty common sense to me. I don't think that the laws here work out the same as in the US, I agree they are very harsh. People shuld look into things more deeply to find out exactly what people have done when they come up with a record, in any criminal activity.
 

donald

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[quote=Flying Crane;
The US legal system determines that once a person has served his time for his conviction, he should not be continuously punished for his crime. His debt has been paid and he is supposed to be free to get on with life.

The problem is, or I guess I should say the reality is. That your criminal record follows you forever... Thats why a person who has paid their dues to the justice system is never truly free of that past stench. It is so easy to check a person's past. That anyone can dig up fossilized info on anyone. I (by The Lord Jesus' grace) never spent a day in prison. Still I have a criminal record that by GOD's grace stopped in around 83, or so. Now over 20 yrs. have passed, and this old info can be dug up. The sad fact is that when its dug up. They don't really consider how long its been, or even your more recent history. I think this may be why some turn back to crime. They just don't see an end. Thanks for your consideration.
1stJohn1:9
 

charyuop

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I agree, above all here in the USA, even a simple thing will ruin your life forever. Here a little example...

I go out to a bar and I get drunk. I don't wanna drive, so I get into my car and start sleeping my alcohol away. A cop knocks on my door and realizes I am drunk. If I have the car keys on me (and if I don't how do I get into my car?) I get a nice DUI (driving under influence) which if I am not wrong it is considered a felony. But by what I know a felony is also speeding too fast (if not wrong 20 or 30 miles per hour above speed limit). Now, considering that many places, above all big companies, no longer hire people with a felony isn't that a good way to punish a little mistake?

That was just a little "side dish" to go with the main course we talked above, the sex abusers who sex abusers really are not.
 

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