Kurt,

The program you are referring to on not asking criminals about their past record is “ban the box.” (see http://overlawyered.com/?s=Ban+the+box) It has been discussed in this forum at length.

I was going to include that in the post, but it was too serious a point when I was trying to be sarcastic.

(If the sarcasm wasn’t abundantly clear, I have to work on my sarcasm skills.)

But wait! There is more that I didn’t bring up in the post as well because I am sure Mr. Olson tires of my long responses. (That may or may not be sarcasm.)

I am not sure what type of record would ban someone from volunteering at a school. Here in Florida, if you are convicted three times of driving without insurance, that is a felony. So are we banning felons?

Or how about saying that the ban would extend just to people who have been convicted of a sex crime? How many times have we heard stories about two teens that take a roll in the hay and the male is convicted of sexual assault? The teen and later the adult will have to register as a sexual predator which will preclude him from volunteering at his kids’ school for his entire life.

Of course, the rational for this is to “protect the children” and it is a good thought. But we are constantly told that the recidivism rate for sexual predators is no greater than for other felons. That means that if we are just screening out sex felons, we can still have people who were convicted of arson, drug dealing, theft, embezzlement, etc in the schools.

Background checks are ineffective as shown by the number of teachers who commit crimes against students. The way to end kids being harmed is more volunteers so kids are never left alone with an adult.

The bottom line is that “past performance is not indicative of future results.”

gitcarver
Wasn’t there some posts on this very site about not allowing employers to ask about criminal history?

Once again it becomes impossible to know what to do.

p.s. I assumed you were being sarcastic.

I fully support the idea of background checks required for people like this. After all, such background checks have been useful in eliminating teachers from inappropriately contact and sex with students.

Heck, the idea of a background check should be extended to all professions because that way we can eliminate crime!

No corrupt cops because of background checks. No CPAs embezzling money because of background checks. No lawyers committing crimes; no contractor stealing from people; no corrupt politicians, etc.

All eliminated because of “background checks!”

The panacea for all of society’s ills!