Interesting to see who’s “ sharing” the article & who’s giving it a “thumbs up.” These might be the members of the reform group that didn’t want to be mentioned in the article.
@Satin Filly, you understand that your proposed scenario isn’t the same right? you can still disagree with the safe sport decision and concede that your scenario isn’t the same.
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Basically, they want it all to be exactly like the legal system which has proven time and time again to be hell for the survivors and not punish the predators appropriately without hard physical evidence. This group basically says " let’s just let the pedophiles run rampant throughout our sports until they’re stupid enough to be caught, charged, and convicted in a criminal court."
If the criminal justice system were the best way to stop pedophiles, we wouldn’t need Safe Sport at all, and if we “reform” Safe Sport to require facing the accused, and providing hard physical evidence it’s going to be as useless as the criminal courts are in most of these cases.
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A lot are way past the statute of limitations though.
I’m having a hard time seeing the grey area here. The crime committed is the same, the circumstances shouldn’t matter. Either you’re into child pornography or you aren’t. As an organization put forth to protect children from child predators, SS is either okay with that history or they aren’t. That’s the way it should be, IMO. Why blur the lines?
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A friend’s daughter was raped repeatedly by a family friend for two years, from age 8-10. She just disclosed to my friend earlier this year, at only 12.
The perpetrator pled, and was sentenced to 50 months…she will not even have graduated high school when the man who raped her and stole her childhood is set free.
is there anyone here who believes that is justice?
Is that system really what we want our sport to aspire to?
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How awful. 50 months is nothing compared to how this will effect her the rest of her life. I’m really sorry for your friend’s daughter and her family.
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Well there isn’t one in NJ so…not to mention aren’t we talking about reform for future instances so this perceived lack of due process and the like never happens again? I know it’s really just hand wringing over GM and a couple others from back in the day when apparently that sort of thing was ok but they are at least pretending to be talking about potential current events that wouldn’t be from before SOLs ran out.
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Since you aren’t privy to what information SS used to make their decision, you’ll just have to stomp your foot and remain peeved that JS was part of the takedown of GM, while you conveniently overlook the fact that it was GM’s behavior that did him in.
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I thought I recalled SS stating that their decision to lift Soresi’s ban had nothing to do with what happened between him and George. Are they saying otherwise now? I haven’t been following closely.
Besides, my question was purely unbiased and based out of curiosity. I’m not stomping my feet. I’m not peeved at all. The situation is what it is, I’m just trying to understand it.
I hate when people make assumptions.
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Thank you. Could not have said it better.
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What seems fair is that people in possession of all the details and all the facts get to make that call, not armchair quarterbacks.
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This.
One of the oddest things about the objectors is their insistence on turning everything over to LE. Think being on a SafeSport list is a life problem? Try an arrest record that will live in the public record forever. LE can make an arrest before they have completed their investigation, for a number of reasons. That’s a record that will turn up in every background check, such as done by landlords, traditional employers and even some mortgage lenders. Some prospective clients may do a background check as well, before dropping off their children, or committing to large bills. The outcome of the case will also be on record. No matter how the LE case ends up, there is still that arrest record being found every time someone looks.
There are people with ordinary lives who must explain to every new job interviewer an arrest in their distant past, for some minor issue that was adjudicated and done with long ago. The anti-SS crowd doesn’t know that? They want to expose the accused parties to this possibility, the people they claim to be trying to protect?
And at this point very probably most of the standard background checks don’t include SafeSport (yet). So limiting the process to SS will probably be much better for the accused.
Not to mention that if they aren’t thrilled with the SafeSport process, keep in mind that the LE process can vary significantly from one jurisdiction to another. And LE doesn’t always get it right, either. And once the prosecutor is involved and the system takes over, whatever theory the system is following will be hard to deflect. And will need a good attorney to do so.
And in the end an LE investigation that leads to a prosecution can end with actual jail/prison time.
If I were in the shoes of someone who was worried about their own conduct being discovered, I’d far rather take my chances with SafeSport than LE.
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It’s apples and oranges. You’re talking about SafeSport sanctions as if they were a punishment for a crime. They aren’t. That’s what the justice system is for. The role of SS is to determine if someone poses a risk to minor athletes. They have a range of actions at their disposal from doing nothing to recommending a lifetime ban. The goal isn’t to punish an offender but to limit / minimize risk to minors. So in looking for “grey area” a reasonable person might conclude that there was significant evidence showing that JS no longer poses a risk and a ban is no longer necessary, or that he never did pose a risk and shouldn’t have been banned in the first place
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Has Safe Sport said anything? JS was banned because he had a criminal conviction. He served his term so was dropped from the Safe Sport list. He had no Safe Sport complaint against him. If someone new is convicted on child pornography charges, they would also be on the banned list. Once they served their term, they would also be off the list.
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I am also appalled that the Chronicle gave this person a forum. I think it is disgusting for a sports magazine to run a piece that discusses how we are mistreating our child molesters, particularly without being able to cite a single instance in which a child molester was actually mistreated. I also think that this piece is harmful to our sport, trying to take us back to a culture that protected perpetrators. I’m sorry, but it is time for the equestrian world to bring itself up to some semblance of the reasonable standards that are widely accepted in other workplaces, youth groups, and organizations.
I am only thankful that DC was a very poor spokesperson for her cause. Basically Ms. Carney thinks that even if there is credible evidence that children are being molested, matters should be kept private (and thus the abuser allowed to continue having access to victims and potential victims) until a final resolution is reached. That’s insane.
@oneequestrienne alluded to it earlier, and I’m starting to agree: what is really behind this anti-Safe Sport movement is people having personal discomfort about their past acts coming to light. When people refer to how things were “different” back in the day, they are NOT trying to say that it was acceptable to molest children and teens back then because of course it wasn’t. What they are referring to is the insular culture of the equestrian community at that time that virtually guaranteed that many inappropriate and illegal acts would never result in negative consequences. Many people acted as if there would never be any consequences for their actions.
Now that Safe Sport has appeared, I think a lot of people are looking uncomfortably at their own pasts whether they were a perpetrator, a bystander, or someone who knows that their behavior was at least questionable. They and their friends are trying desperately to carry on the tradition of “protecting their own” via any method they can: every possible method of victim shaming, shunning people who come forward, and discrediting Safe Sport.
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Ok, I’m happy to explain. GM and RG both had multiple actual sexual relationships with underage persons, which in both instances resulted in lifetime bans. These bans were upheld by independent arbitrators outside of the Safe Sport organization who provide outside oversight to ensure fairness in the Safe Sport process.
JS was not accused by anyone of any kind of abuse or molestation. Instead, he was arrested and convicted of possession of child pornography that was discovered when he took his computer in to be repaired. He was placed on a sex offenders registry for that charge, and after serving his time on that registry he was removed. According to Safe Sport, if you are on a sex offender registry of any kind you are “ineligible to participate.” Safe Sport banned JS, but then his case went to an independent arbitrator. In the case of JS, the independent arbitrator–a person unrelated to the Safe Sport organization–overturned the JS ban in a final, binding decision. Let me repeat: It was NOT the decision of Safe Sport to overturn the JS ban. Instead, an independent arbitrator reviewed the case, held hearings, and made the final decision to overturn the ban.
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How do you protect the community from a pedophile by keeping their names private until after an investigation? I’d like Ms. Carney to name any other profession that leaves a pedophile in their position while they’re investigated. I’d also like to know why there are unsigned testimonials on their website and they won’t name all the donors in this article if they’re screaming and stomping their feet asking for transparency.
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This is ridiculous. Follow Safe Sport regulations. If the rules are followed there will be no false accusations that will stand as true.
These people are obviously concerned about the past catching up with them, and their friends. Period.
It is unfortunate for them that they believe that intelligent people can’t see through their hysterical reaction to Safe Sport.
I think that all of this complaining and forming of “anti” groups is an attempt at a first strike defense of those who have behaved badly in the past. Otherwise, why not calmly discuss and question, through regular channels, instead of freaking out about rules and procedures that they have obviously not bothered to research?
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That’s disgusting and a slap in the face to your friend’s daughter. I know what a life sentence a survivor has firsthand.
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