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The SPJA Needs to Change Its Youth Protection Policy


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Alan45
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Joined: 25 Aug 2010
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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 2:08 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
Quote:
Huh, that's interesting. I'm not used to living a life that isn't full of background checks, searches, frisks, and all that.

I had a full background check when I entered the service and a more thorough one when my job required a security clearance. I had an additional check when I began to work for the Federal Government. However, that was over forty years ago. To the best of my knowledge, I haven't had any sort of background check since than, at least none that I authorized.

The local civic center makes my wife open her pocketbook on entrance, and airports are, well, airports. However, that is pretty much it. I've never been frisked or patted down. Sometimes I wonder if we live in the same country. Laughing
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 2:41 pm Reply with quote
Maybe it's different laws in different parts of the country.

When I got rear-ended many years back and it was reported, my car insurance company did a full background check on me and a check of the accident site. I had to take the documents to the DMV, where they did their own check, and to the courthouse, where upon entering, you must empty your pockets through one of those x-ray conveyor belts, walk through a metal detector, and get patted down. Later, the insurance company checked my injury history (which is another type of background check, though a medicla one and not a criminal one).

I live in the same region that Anime Expo is located though, and it's well-known this region is a high-crime area with a strong gang presence and major drug trafficking. Considering this is also the region where some gangs had infiltrated the police and government, I think it's understandable everyone is a bit more paranoid than the average.
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Agent355



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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 2:42 pm Reply with quote
Why is the con asking vendors to cover their employees' background checks when in the state of California, its perfectly legal to pass on that cost to the individual employee getting the check, and even the volunteers working at the con?

Backgroundchecks.com:

Quote:
...If your state is not one of the seven listed above, then you are living in a place where no relevant legislation has yet been passed on this particular subject. Employers in these 43 states—from Michigan to Texas, and from New York to California—still have the freedom to ask that you pay to cover your own background check expenses. It doesn't matter if those expenses are incurred through county criminal screenings, state repository searches, or multi-jurisdictional private database checks. It also doesn't matter if you are being asked to cover the costs of a credit check, a driving history report, or a drug test. Without laws on the books, employers in these 43 states have the freedom to make you pay for any type of pre-employment background check—provided that it is not otherwise prohibited. Of course, that's not to say that all (or even most) employers in these states will exercise that freedom. As background checks have become more and more common as a component of the hiring process, more and more employers have also set aside budgets to pay for the background checks of their applicants. Businesses that run periodic checks on their existing employees are even more likely to cover the expenses.

More common is the practice for volunteers to be asked to pay for their own background checks. For instance, when a parent wants to volunteer in the classroom, or coach their child's sports team, they will customarily be asked by the school or the league to pay for a background check. Even in the states where employees can't be asked to cover background check expenses, volunteers can still be expected to pay their own way.
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Brent Allison



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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 3:02 pm Reply with quote
I have to make sure education students pass background checks every semester since they work very closely with young children in tutoring and mentoring capacities for a semester. Somehow, work that is tangentially related to youth because they happen to be in the same building for four days doesn't seem to warrant the same level of trouble and expense.

@leafy sea dragon Yes, because when gang bangers are gonna mess sh*t up, they go to the cartoon convention to work registration and hand out badges. Made out of cocaine.
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Redbeard 101
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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 3:12 pm Reply with quote
Brent Allison wrote:
I have to make sure education students pass background checks every semester since they work very closely with young children in tutoring and mentoring capacities for a semester. Somehow, work that is tangentially related to youth because they happen to be in the same building for four days doesn't seem to warrant the same level of trouble and expense.

Because my one church group I am a part off works with the youth group from time to time any of us who do so had to go through the STAND training online ourselves.

Brent Allison wrote:
@leafy sea dragon Yes, because when gang bangers are gonna mess sh*t up, they go to the cartoon convention to work registration and hand out badges. Made out of cocaine.

So ummm you wouldn't happen to have one of those badges you could let me borrow would you? I'd like to study it...for artistic reasons...yea.... Anime hyper
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Brent Allison



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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 3:16 pm Reply with quote
Psycho 101 wrote:
Because my one church group I am a part off works with the youth group from time to time any of us who do so had to go through the STAND training online ourselves.


There's breezing through some fairly commonsensical online training modules (my students do that too), and then there's actual background checks. Problems with those have already been elaborated on in this thread, so I won't repeat them here.

Psycho 101 wrote:
So ummm you wouldn't happen to have one of those badges you could let me borrow would you? I'd like to study it...for artistic reasons...yea.... Anime hyper


If I did, you think I'd tell you while posting under my real name?

The answer to that is yes.
And by "yes" I mean no.
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Cordelia LeFay



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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 3:24 pm Reply with quote
This will be very interesting to see how this all pans out.

While I'm anxious to see how this will affect vendors, I can't say that this is completely unnecessary. When I went to Anime Expo in 2014, there was a gambling vendor there and someone pickpocketed my friend who went to go get money to play it. I don't doubt that there was some ring going on with that vendor. So while background checks seem like it's asking a lot, it will probably weed out a lot of bad apples.
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 6:36 pm Reply with quote
Cordelia LeFay wrote:
I can't say that this is completely unnecessary. When I went to Anime Expo in 2014, there was a gambling vendor there and someone pickpocketed my friend who went to go get money to play it. I don't doubt that there was some ring going on with that vendor. So while background checks seem like it's asking a lot, it will probably weed out a lot of bad apples.
Your friend was almost certainly pickpocket by someone who had a regular attendee badge. Regular attendees aren't subject to any screening at all. It's one of the biggest problems with this policy, less than 5% of the people at AX are being screened. Imagine if the TSA only screened 5% of passengers ? It's almost completely pointless.
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DoctorScorpio



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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 6:59 pm Reply with quote
Its worse! Its more like if the TSA only screened the airport employees and the people who worked at the duty free shops/food court.
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Alan45
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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 7:24 pm Reply with quote
@leafy sea dragon

I had a minor auto accident last year. I spent about 15 minutes on the phone reporting it to my insurance company. I drove to the body shop of my choice (recommended by the dealership and the insurance company) and spent another 15 or so minutes getting an estimate and an appointment for the work. A week or so later I dropped it off. I picked it up when finished and paid my deductible. That was it. Around here the police will not come to the scene of an accident on private property unless there is injury.

Prior to Oklahoma the Federal Building (where I worked) had no security at all. The Federal courts had guards, but only when court was in session. It took over a year after the bombing before we got anything. GSA would open the building a 5:30 am and the local street people would file in and use the restrooms to clean up.
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leafy sea dragon



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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 7:26 pm Reply with quote
Brent Allison wrote:
@leafy sea dragon Yes, because when gang bangers are gonna mess sh*t up, they go to the cartoon convention to work registration and hand out badges. Made out of cocaine.


Well, my point is that the gang presence and gang culture has everyone on edge, and I feel that practically everything having checks, frisks, and metal detectors around here is at least an indirect cause of that.

Of course, the real danger would be people bringing concealed weapons in order to cause trouble, but there hasn't been any major incidents involving concealed weapons at the LACC that I know of. (Do people in Japan have similar problems with walking through those X-ray gates too? With those, it's pretty obvious everyone must walk through them, so the argument that they're being perceived as criminals would be rather weak.)

Alan45 wrote:
@leafy sea dragon

I had a minor auto accident last year. I spent about 15 minutes on the phone reporting it to my insurance company. I drove to the body shop of my choice (recommended by the dealership and the insurance company) and spent another 15 or so minutes getting an estimate and an appointment for the work. A week or so later I dropped it off. I picked it up when finished and paid my deductible. That was it. Around here the police will not come to the scene of an accident on private property unless there is injury.


Wow, things really ARE different where you're at compared to where I'm at. (Said accident was on the road though.) The process for me regarding that accident took about 18 months total, as the insurance company demanded I go take a year's worth of massages for some reason. Also, the information was going through various bureaucracies and took that long to finally get resolved, as well as an attorney from my insurance company going to traffic court against the other person's attorney from his insurance company. During that time, every now and then an investigator from both insurance companies would come over and take photographs of my car (though always with my permission). This was not a major accident--no one was injured and there was no damage a good mechanic couldn't fix. But I guess some insurance agent wanted to draw it out for as long as possible or something.

Don't car insurance companies do detailed checks on everyone involved with these accidents in order to determine how much they pay out and how much your rates could increase (if they increase at all)?
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Galap
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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 8:28 pm Reply with quote
The key to this to me is that there's a big difference between actual security and the pretense of it. Actual security is hard, but it's a lot easier to do things that make it look like Something Is Being Done, regardless of how effective they may be. Those of us (myself included) who think this is a bad idea do not think it isn't important to try to prevent protect people from getting messed with. On the contrary we think that this policy will not be effective at doing this, and will have unintended consequences that are negative enough to make it a bad idea.

and also, as for the issue of them being children, they're teenagers. I wouldn't call them children. I wouldn't call them adults either, so I'd call them teenagers. And I think teenagers should have the right to a pretty good degree of autonomy and do not need to be restricted for their protection to nearly the extent that children would.
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Alan45
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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 8:56 pm Reply with quote
@leafy sea dragon

I have no idea what checks they did behind the scenes. That was my total involvement though. I think my rates went up slightly. I've had the same company since 1967 which may influence things.
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crosswithyou



Joined: 15 Dec 2007
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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 9:15 pm Reply with quote
Well AX just announced a ton of anisong guests so it'll be interesting to see if they continue with their planned background checks and how they implement them.
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littlegreenwolf



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
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Location: Seattle, WA
PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 11:42 pm Reply with quote
I'm seriously upset about this stuff. Several artists I follow who usually attend have dropped out because they're overseas, and there's a ton of hoops and fees they now have to pay in order to attend. One of them for example is Shilin, perhaps best known for some League of Legends splash art. I like the AX artist alley because of the various professional artists that attend, and now I'm wondering if it'll even be worth it to attend.
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