[Artemisia] This week's edition of "Security Theater"

[John Harrison]

I have to say that this was my take exactly.

I am sorry for sayign this, but it is true.  I am a parent and I have
yet to bring my daughter to events.  I am planning on doing so soon,
but so far I haven't.

Just for information reasons, I have played in the SCA sicne I was 17.
 I was involved in many trists by time I was 18 and of legal age.
Some of which were with women older than 18 and some with women of my
own age.  I was never asked how old I was...and, although I did my
best to find their ages, I know that I didn't always ask.  I also know
that none of the advances that I recived have ever been at or around
youth activities.  They were always later...around fires...or on walks
while the lists were being run through.  Sometimes during the
day...and sometimes at night.  The point is that the Youth Ministers
were never involved.

The real issue is that the people that would prey on our children are
probably not the ones that would be in cahrge of the youth activities.
 and I am quite sure that if the incidents that were listed in the
original missive were to be reviewed very few, if any, would have been
by a memeber of teh youth activites.  Instead the incidents would have
been somewhere else...where the youth was unsupervised by an adult.

So, in this, I have to agree with El Hermoso Dormiendo.  Unless we
completely do not allow previous child abuse offenders at events it
will not work.  Of course the only ones we should be worried about are
the child sex offenders.  I say this because I have had a few friends
who were convicted of child abuse and I was tehre with them when they
had "commited" the crime.  all they did was smack their child on the
wrist for trying to pull a heavy glass container off of the shelf in a
store.  Someone else, a concerned parent, called the police and the
person was immediately arrested and convicted due to their ethnicity.
My testimony made little difference and the fact that there wasn't
even a red mark, thus the smack was more of a light tap, made no
difference either.

As far as limiting all sex offenders from joining the SCA, that would
be a severe mistake as well.  I say this because most laws consider
homosexual activites to be considered as sexual offenders.  There are
several other sexual axtivites that occur between consentiung adults
that, if a third party were to witness/report it, would put them in
court and likely convict them of a sexual offense.

Now the SCA that I joined, and have been playing in for quite sometime
now, was founded on a dream of chivalry unto everyone, courtly love,
and researching history.  Nowhere in this Dream is there any mention
of ostricization of those that do not fit in the "normal society".  In
fact according to "normal society" most of us don't fit.  If we, as a
society, did fit there would be a lot more crime at events as well as
less songs like "Freaking the Mundanes".

Again, El Hermoso Dormiendo did state his take that it was a standard
corporate anti-liability measure.  I have to agree.  To me it read
just like all corporate anti-liability missive's read.  It is a way
for the SCA, as a non-profit organization, to avoid having lawsuits
levied against if, or at least to limit the damages of such lawsuits.

With all of the above known, I am all for the use of background checks
in this usage.  But I fear that it will boil down to everyone at
events having to have one...and then there will be descrimination
against any that have a fail status...unless there is a way to know
why the fail status occured.

Like El Hermoso Dormiendo, I was going to stay out of it.  But after
reading his post I had to let my opinion be heard.  Now I will fall
silent once more on this issue.

Yours in Service to the Dream

-Garath r' cath cara bardd



On 4/17/07, El Hermoso Dormiendo <ElHermosoDormido at dogphilosophy.net> wrote:
> This "background checks" thing disgusts me, though probably not for the reason
> you might guess.
>
> It doubly fails to affect me directly, since I have no interest nor intention
> of ever being in charge of youth activities in the SCA, and even if I did, I
> would be even more shocked than anyone else if I failed a background check
> for the purpose.  And, is there really anyone at all who WANTS child abusers
> (or adult abusers, for that matter) in the SCA at all?  The apparent
> intention of the policy is to Protect the Children, which is obviously a good
> thing, right?
>
> The problem is, this appears, so far, to be nothing more than a typical
> corporate-style attempt to avoid legal blame without actually doing anything
> about the problem.  And here's why:
>
> As stated, it sounds as though this is meant to relate to formally
> sanctioned "Youth Activities" coordinators and the like and wouldn't affect
> anyone else.  However, as stated in an earlier post (one of several in the
> same general theme):
>
> "From what I understand of this it only involves those who will or could
> potentially be in close contact with our minor children."
>
> Therein lies the problem.  The SCA is not a day-care center with well-defined
> children's areas - instead, we seem to tend towards "free-range children" in
> the society.  (And why not?  The SCA has historically seemed to be made up of
> a substantially better average class of people than a typical population.  If
> you can't be safe in the SCA, where CAN you be safe?)  Given this fact -
> nearly EVERYONE who shows up at an event may fall into the category
> of "potentially in close contact with our minor children", especially at
> larger events.  Background checks on the handful of individuals publically
> expressing interest in running formally-sanctioned youth activities seems
> ridiculously unlikely to catch the people we really ought to be worried
> about.  ACTUALLY protecting children will require going much further.  Do we
> implement a policy of background checks for all members (and allow only
> people who have undergone background checks to participate?)  Do we limit SCA
> activities to adults only?  Do we require children to remain in designated
> areas under close supervision of formally designated youth monitors when not
> under direct and immediate supervision of their legal guardians?  (Perhaps we
> could outsource this to a 3rd-party certified day-care organization much as
> the chirugeonate-type activities appear to have been outsourced at Pennsic?)
> Not that they'd have to be absolute - we could always alternate
> between "adults-only" events (not requiring background checks) and "children"
> events (where everyone would require background checks), for example.
>
> These aren't sarcastic suggestions - I really think it'll take going to this
> kind of extreme to actually reach any effective level of action against the
> problem.
>
> This policy isn't about protecting children.  This is purely about Corporate
> avoidance of blame.  Even THIS much doesn't really bother me in and of
> itself - "limitation of liability" is a valid concept in running a corporate
> entity.
>
> What really, really bugs me is that this "CYA" attitude is so utterly alien to
> the fundamental culture of chivalry, service, and responsibility that was
> central to the SCA that I joined.  If someone is having a problem, members of
> the populace spontaneously step forward to help solve it, not to just try to
> find a way to avoid blame for it.  Corporate "necessity" or not, an empty
> responsibility-avoidance scheme that doesn't actually address the problem
> effectively just doesn't seem right.
>
> The *membership* of the SCA is still largely about the chivalrous tournament,
> the romance of courtly behavior, and the educational historical research, but
> the *organization* is turning into some sort of Byzantine corporate
> Dilbertian thing that just plain doesn't seem to belong.  I don't think this
> dichotomy is stable.  As the "Society of Corporate Asininity, Inc." slowly
> dilutes the Society for Creative Anachronism out of existence, it reminds me
> more and more of the sort of corporate environment many of us spend our days
> working in.
>
> If I wanted a corporate parody of "The Dream", I'd go to Disneyland(tm) or
> McDonalds(tm) instead.
>
> signed,
> El Hermoso Dormiendo - getting increasingly less tolerant of these kinds of
> shenanigans as he ages...
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