Theme park employees caught in sex stings

[circus4u]

Theme park employees caught in sex stings, child porn arrests http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/14/us/theme-park-employees-child-sex-stings/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

[longrf01]

I'm on the fence about this one - I think no matter how hard Disney tries, bad apples are going to get in.

There's a balance between the secrecy needed to protect security processes and the public's desire to understand how their children are being protected. I'd like to see a slight rebalancing and have Disney be more forthcoming about their pre-casting and ongoing screening.

What I'd like to know is: are only on-stage CMs screened? How frequently are CMs rescreened? Are you looking at Florida, just the states listed on the casting application, or nationwide? Do you include a criminal history check which would indicate crimes committed prior to the registry going into effect or just the current registry?

Now I know the attorneys won't permit this disclosure (creates a binding expectation / locks you in), nor the PR people (always send a positive, happy message and this isn't such a topic), nor the risk management people (security through obscurity), but a parent can wish.

Having blathered on about this, I don't think Disney has crisis. I'd say the results of their process are meeting reasonable expectations.

 

[Judyfun]

I just read the article and must say they Disney does all it can. but there are people out there with issues. I does amuse me (in a sad way) that instead of getting help, they state that there were only trying to help the child. Do they take the police for idiots!! the comment from the CNN story:

"he was just trying to protect the girl, and planned to call authorities when he showed up at the house."

sorry this is my hot button

 

[eadavis]

Given the fact that Disney employs over 66,000 people in Central Florida alone...any time there are mass arrests, regardless of the crime, a Disney employee or two are bound to be among them.

There have been countless threads on this topic over the last few years regarding this topic and the same themes always find themselves on the board. It's near impossible to catch a pedophile until you catch them in the act. Heck, just earlier this week members of the KKK were discovered within FDLE. I wonder how many are within Disney, probably a couple, we won't know until they break the law or do something to expose themselves...

 

[Ulysses]

Disney's workforce within the WDW parks alone is large enough to constitute a small city. Nearly 70,000 people is a tremendous amount of people. I have no idea how many people work for Universal or SeaWorld or any of the other smaller tourist attractions, but I would wager than nearly 1/3rd of Orlando's population are in Orlando and living there because of tourism and/or theme parks.

That said, the odds of a massive sting operation online is very likely to snare a few creeps that slipped through the cracks. There is almost nothing Disney, or Universal, or SeaWorld or any of the others can do, especially if said offender(s) are of the first-time offender variety, or simply just hadn't been caught yet.

From the evidence presented in the story, there were dramatically differences in deviance exhibited by those that were caught in the sting, but not a single one of them had a prior offense of any kind. That really doesn't give the theme parks any cause to deny their hiring if they haven't been found guilty of the crime. Without adopting some method of profiling (which is a big ethical wormhole of never-ending debate), there is only so much that can be done to protect park-goers with hiring policy.

To use an analogous situation; a drug policy is always in place in every workplace to protect the consumers and protect the company from liability. But when you're hiring thousands or people per year, you can bet there is going to be a veteran drug user that knows every trick in the book to stay off the radar and pass all their screenings.

Personally, I have a very Draconian sense of justice when it comes to predators so I'll just leave this as a thought on hiring policy.