The California state social services agency is moving to shut down nine homes used for child day care and foster care after an audit found registered sex offenders living there, in violation of state law.
The revelation came after state auditors compared the addresses of 75,000 licensed facilities, including foster family homes and in-home day care centers, with the state’s database of registered sex offenders.
California Department of Social Services Director John Wagner said the audit found that the addresses of 49 sex offenders matched those of 46 child care facilities.
There are so many overlapping questions, it really is difficult to decide where to start. Especially when the whole Sex Offender/Protect The Children do-si-dos is central.
Push comes to shove, though – some of these licensed care facilities seem to have no clue about requirements. Who’s in charge of due diligence and enforcement?
Take your chances in the wild or just hand the kids over to the state. Hmmmm which to choose.
“some of these licensed care facilities seem to have no clue about requirements.”
Why aren’t these offenders tagged? (ankle bracelet) be kinda hard to miss…
Considering that the “sex offender” title is oftentimes overly broad in its application, I wonder how much actual risk exists here and how much is just an “at first blush” reaction.
@#3
Exactly! Why do people seem to automatically assume that a “sex offender” is a pedophile? So then, as an example, suddenly a collage student who was streaking at a football game is now a threat to small children?
#3… I was just going to say the same thing.
Also, how accurate are both databases? I’d bet they are full of old, outdated data. These rosters are notorious for being unreliable.
If I can’t go to the kids, I’ll have the kids come to me.
3-4-5==a trifecta! (with 1-2 right on)
If the law is you lose your kiddie license if you employ registered sex offenders then whats your problem?
Want to relitigate the issue behind the conviction? What to allow exceptions by an independent review? Fine, change the law.
Until then, while your concerns are valid at first blush, the “first” simple general rule of no sex offenders can work at kiddie care is nothing but reasonable.
Arguing against it is dimwitted.
Bobbo,
The real issue is the misconception that every “sex offender” is automatically grouped with pedophiles, and treated worse than psychopathic murders, when thier “sex crime” has little to do with children in the first place.
Argument against this isn’t stupid, Bobbo. Letting this kina bullshit go on just allows more of this sort of thing to fester into other parts of our lives. Look at some of the stories from this past week about if you “look” at a child for too long, you’ll get arrested. It’s already getting out of hand.
#7, bobbo,
… the “first” simple general rule of no sex offenders can work at kiddie care is nothing but reasonable.
Arguing against it is dimwitted.
This is among the silliest post you have ever made. Why is the rule about “no sex offender” working at a child day care reasonable? Obviously you don’t care even why or how they got the label.
You assume the “sex offender” is a danger to children. You suggest (rather you state) commenting upon it is dimwitted.
The reason the law won’t change anytime soon is to bring some reasonableness to the law will automatically bring loud accusations of being pro sex offender from the retarded class of idiot parrots. They don’t need to be correct, just shrill. Since being labeled a sex offender is not what happens to everyone, there is little momentum to correct the law as it now stands.
Bobbo, you are not an idiot, but this post is.
I’m seeing a pattern here. Things aren’t self evident.
What is the liberty interest in allowing “any” ex-con around our kiddies? Then just move closer to the relevant target. Why not let pedophile sex offenders work in kiddie care if his thing was left handed brunettes and the facility only houses right handed blonds?
It is very evident that the State cannot license/enforce facilities that will even follow the simplest of rules and your recommendation is to make a more complicated rule?
My post can only be understood in the “real” world. Idealogical zealots have a hard time moderating an absolutely correct theoretical concern into the practicalities of life that render it “dim witted.”
# 8
Yes, problematic. An 18 yr old guy has a 17 yr old girlfriend. In some states that can earn you the label.
Bobbo.. so you’re saying we should keep stupid and broad rules/laws like this in place because the population at large is too stupid to comprehend a rule that might be little more complex to protect the rights of people? Yet all in the name of keeping children safe.
Hmm, might as well let the government raise your children then. Since you don’t want to take responsibility, or you think parents don’t deserve that responsibility. That’s what your logic ultimately concludes too.
#10, bobbo,
What is the liberty interest in allowing “any” ex-con around our kiddies?
I’m sorry you have drunk so much this morning to impair your reasoning.
The label “sex offender” is as broad as suggesting “all those with freckles” can’t do something. If your girlfriend is 17 and you’re 18, you can become a sex offender. If you get caught fornicating in the bushes you can be labeled. If you can’t wait and relieve your bladder in the bushes you can be labeled. If a date unfairly claims you grabbed her tit you can be labeled. If someone doesn’t like the way Santa bounces the little kids on his knee, he runs the risk of being labeled. If you violently rape several women you can be labeled.
I don’t have the statistics but I’ll bet the majority of people labeled a sex offender have not committed a serious offense. Nor is there any indication that those so labeled are pedophiles.
#12–Frag==the rule is broad, but not stupid. When broad general purpose rules can be followed/enforced, then they can be narrowed to accommodate additional interests==but only then. The broad rule IS a legitimate attempt to protect the kiddies and help parents. Your unstated rule, I have to assume, would do the opposite.
#13–Catshit==your argument is repetitive and completely irrelevant. What more can I say than your point is absolutely correct on a theoretical level? Now get practical. All rules are broad and in a perfect world all rules would be fully understood by all who enforce them and would be at a minimum 365 pages long.
Why can’t someone be President of the USA at age 34? Surely there are good decent qualified people just a year shy of this arbitrary rule.
Oh, the humanity. I have a criminal record and there are certain jobs I’m not allowed to perform.
Dim witted.
Bobbo, that never happens. Once a law is in place it’s EXTREMELY difficult to refine it down properly, while hundreds or more people lose their liberties just for the false security of protecting our children.
What’s wrong with properly defining it BEFORE it comes law?
#15–Frag==of course it happens. Though usually near election time to make the law even more unfair. Downward spiral kind of thing.
I think the whole point of being an ex-con/sex offender is that you are supposed to lose some of your liberties.
The security of the kiddies is not false. Not perfect. Not false.
Nothings wrong with making a law as precise/applicable/effective as possible. But the subject here is should a sex offender be allowed to work at kiddie care. Absolutely no doubt gradations of applicability can be made. Should they???
If the worst thing that ever happens to a sex offender is that he can’t work at a kiddie care facility==that would be one happy person.
Bobbo, what if someone is unduly or unjustly labeled? It doesn’t take much to get rubber stamped as a sex offender; public urination and a particularly ticked off cop to witness it could be enough. All one needs to do to become a registered sex offender is to be arrested, never mind convicted. An exonerated police record does not even mean that the person is automatically off the roster. The law is inherently flawed and once accused, the odds of finding help, compassion, or understanding are pretty much out the window.
#17–crimson==unfairness is at every intersection of the warp and weave of society.
You are complaining about how people unfairly get on the sex offenders list. That’s already been covered. You want each mom and pop kiddie facility to make an independent evaluation of the “true facts” behind being on the list when the evidence is right now, too many aren’t even checking the list? Well ok.
Rephrase you concern to something new or suggest what changes you think would be appropriate?
Ultimately you are going to arrive at a “list” for people to check against. That list won’t be fair either.
My knee jerk reaction would be “No I don’t want my kids with that person”
BUT
I agree with Sea Lawyer, FRAGaLOT, Mr. Catshit, and even pat.
The term “sex offender” is very broad as pointed out by others. There is stigma that goes with that phrase that need to be clarified in the law. For instance streaking at a football game should not label someone as a “sex offender” but instead an “asshat peckerwood.”
All I am saying is being on the list is no way to decide a person’s fate one way or another. Yes, the onus should be on the employer or government body to evaluate the why the person is on the list, whether or not the person belongs on the list, and if the person is a threat to the situation. In this particular case, I believe a person would need a state regulated license to operate a day care center in the first place. Whatever person okay’d running the place should have looked into it. The only other option is to lose the loose term “Sex Offender” and come up with more specific ones. (I am in favor of “asshat peckerwood by the way).
#20–crimson==you say: “All I am saying is being on the list is no way to decide a person’s fate one way or another.”
So, what would you do?
Did you not read my post?
#22–crimson==fair enough, I was thinking of it in a different way, but I see your point.
But this takes us back to post #7 & 10–so I already did answer you. If your question comes after reading those posts, then you want the government to use a more judgmental process and I simply say “What liberty interest are you trying to advance.?”
Again I say it would be entirely reasonable for ALL ex-cons to not get jobs in day care so the list of sex predators already shows judgment. Left hand brunettes vs right hand blonds, how complicated the rules should be, can’t follow the simple rules anyway?
Its all there.
Ask again as narrow as possible should you think something is missing?
#21, bobbo,
So, what would you do?
DEFINE SEX OFFENDER !!!
A violent rapist is not the same as someone who got a consensual blow job from his slightly younger girlfriend. A child molester is not the same as someone who took a leak behind a bush or streaked across a football field. Yet the law treats them the same. And you, in your morning fucked up mood, said anyone challenging the assumption they are all the same is dim witted.
Yes, some sex offenders should be locked up a long time. Way too many though are lumped in with the worst. There is no escape from the list. There is no appeal to a court. There is only discrimination for the rest of the person’s life for something he did as a teenager.
Well, getting back to an earlier example, do you equate urinating on a bush to wanting to have sex with a right handed blond? Is that enough to be an “ex-con” in the full sense of the term? Should streaking in and of itself disqualify someone from the full benefits of life any one has full rights to? Being arrested is not a black and white condition and is not instantly indicitave of a dangerous person.
Paedophilia, for example, is in no way equal to some of the other things “sex offense” covers. If the fear is over *actual* sex crimes (rape, violent rape, paedophilia) then by all means, the term sex offender fits. That’s about as narrow as you need to get. It’s when all the otherwise unrelated crap (public urination, streaking, unwanted advances) gets tossed into it that the term loses all purpose. This is why the law is flawed.
#25–crimson==you and I just aren’t on the same wave length. To me, you are stuck on the fact the law treats all sex offenders as pedophiles and you think that is “unfair.” You evidently are arguing for the government to go thru the list to determine which people convicted of a sex offense can nonetheless be in a kiddie facility?
I have no problem with that. Lets do it. The law almost always uses very blunt instruments. Everything else I posted above is not in conflict with this.
Given the nature of “crime”–I am also all for any ex-con not being able to get a gun, work at a bank, serve in the military, give blood, work at a kiddie facility and on and on. Don’t like the consequences, don’t do the crime.
I don’t understand what you are so against except for some rare hypothetical? Should systems be set up for the rare hypothetical? I already said yes==so lets put federal funds into clearing ex cons to work in kiddie care rather than getting food to the kiddies at the same place. We have our priorities.
Well, you still haven’t answered my question:
Do you consider public urination to be a sex crime?
Do you really think a convcited streaker should not serve in the military?
#27==me personally? I don’t think either are crimes at all.
Now–do you think any ex-con should be allowed to be associated with kiddie facilities?
#28–sorry, more to the point, what is so horribly wrong that ex-cons should be prohibited from associating with kiddie facilities?
But that’s just it. If you think a public urinator is not a threat but is labeled as a sex offender, should that person lose his or her job? This is essentially what this law does to people who may not necessearily deserve it.