Topic: Background Checks Revisited

[Nemesis]

From: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,306637,00.html

Thailand Considers Background Checks for Foreign Teachers After Child Porn Arrests

BANGKOK, Thailand —  Thai police may begin making background checks on foreign teachers after arresting two on pornography-related charges in less than two weeks, authorities said Wednesday.

"It shouldn't be enough to wear white shirts and have a university degree. We need to know their background," said police Col. Apichart Suribunya, head of Thailand's liaison office for Interpol, the international police agency.

Paul Cornelius Jones, 39, who has lived in Thailand for seven years, was arrested Tuesday after police raided his Bangkok apartment and found a computer containing hundreds of photos of naked boys and girls, Apichart said.

His arrest came after Thai police arrested Christopher Paul Neil of Canada on Oct. 19 on charges of having sex with several young Asian boys.

Jones was arrested after a tip-off from British counterparts, who told police Jones had been sending photos of naked children to Britain over the Internet, Apichart said.

Jones had been working as a teacher at a Bangkok private school, police said.

"It's easy for teachers to gain trust and respect from people, especially in Asian cultures which hold teachers in high regard," Apichart said.
Related

    *
      Stories
          o British Teacher Arrested in Thailand in Internet Child Porn Distribution Case

He said police would seek records of any convictions in home countries and from Thai immigration police before teachers are hired. Police also are considering background checks of foreign teachers already in Thailand, he said.

"Academic background is one thing, but we need to also check for other information," Apichart said.

There are more than 1,000 foreign teachers legally working in Thailand, he said.

Jones, of Cardiff, Wales, has been charged with distributing pornographic photographs of children under age 15, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, Apichart said.

Another officer in the Thai Interpol office, Maj. Phongphon Iamwicharn, said Jones did not appear in the photos, and that there was evidence he had sold the pictures.

Thailand became a focus of cases of sexual abuse of children after Interpol began a manhunt for an alleged child abuser, Christopher Paul Neil, earlier this month. It issued an unprecedented worldwide appeal to identify and apprehend him.

Interpol found about 200 pictures on the Internet of Thai, Cambodian and Vietnamese boys being sexually abused by a man whose face was digitally obscured. German police computer experts unscrambled the photos so the man's face was recognizable and tip-offs led Interpol to identify Neil as a suspect.

He was arrested by Thai police and charged with child sexual abuse, but police are still investigating the case.

Neil has also worked as a teacher at schools in Thailand, South Korea and Vietnam.

Several Southeast Asian countries are popular among pedophiles and sex abusers because of poverty that drives children and their parents to accept money for sexual favors, and sometimes because of lax law enforcement.

[Ronaldo]

If full criminal background checks are to brought in for foreigners wanting to teach in Thailand, well so be it...

However, if the cost of a criminal background check is placed on the prospective teacher, it will read as if you 'the prospect' has to prove your innocence before teaching can commence and have to pay for it, put this alongside the possible cost of travel (flights etc),  the inevitable visa runs, work permits charges, the TL orientation programme etc. etc.. The economic viability of coming to Thailand is reduced to being more or less zero.

No doubt people will still come though.

Add to this scenario many of the horrible experiences posted on this board which seem to outweigh the good experiences, is it still worth coming???

Moreover, in the new case of "Paul Cornelius Jones, 39, who has lived in Thailand for seven years", it seems that he was not known to the British police as someone listed on the 'United Kingdom Sex Offenders list', and it may correct that he did not have a criminal background as this infraction only came to light when he was found by British police to be "distributing pornographic photographs of children" to individuals in the UK. So would a criminal background check have helped??? Maybe not!

Clearly, a number of highly publicised cases have been highlighted over the last several months and rightly so, but I would not like to see this as a justification to go overboard, since it presents even more fodder for unscruplous schools, businesses etc. to use new regulation(s) to squeeze teacher's even more.

I would ask those that propose this type of legislation to step back from the current hysteria and take a mature and thoughful look before jumping into the hyperbole, however I think that this might be just wishful thinking on my behalf.

[TFHOTA]

Moreover, in the new case of "Paul Cornelius Jones, 39, who has lived in Thailand for seven years", it seems that he was not known to the British police as someone listed on the 'United Kingdom Sex Offenders list', and it may correct that he did not have a criminal background as this infraction only came to light when he was found by British police to be "distributing pornographic photographs of children" to individuals in the UK. So would a criminal background check have helped??? Maybe not!

Think you may be wrong here rennie! Reading the newspaper sites it seems the police started investigating because he was in breach of his obligations under the sex offenders act!

[Topper]

You would think countries would routinely share sex offender information.

[Nemesis]

Sex Offender registries are online in the US. I don't know about the UK, but I would think it wouldn't be hard to send in some names to the respective registries once a year when you renew your visa to make sure you're not on the list. 

About SORs, I think they're BS mostly anyways. When someone's committed a heinous crime but then do their time, they should be released and not have some form of lifetime parole which is what an SOR is in reality.

Plus these SOR's are being flooded with names of convicts who are hardly sex offenders. I'm sorry, I'm not worried about the 18 year old boy who has consensual sex with a 17 year old girlfriend. Once convicted, they get on a sex offender registry. It's hardly someone you need to be worried about.

 

[retiredstillteaching]

Requiring background checks with police is wise policy, especially in places such as SE Asia, but background checks could well apply anywhere---lookit the situation in Liberia, I think it is, where some French supposed aid workers are alleged to have been taking kids out of the country on the pretense of adoption etc but in reality (as alleged) have been taking kids to other countries for sex and other illicit and forced behaviors.

If a government wants to require police background checks of foreigners, fine, but the government should pay for the inquiries itself in cooperation with national police and/or international organizations, such as Interpol.

Still, as Nemesis points out, there are quirks in the sex offender laws but the quirks could and should be worked out as best as can be done to minimize the adverse impact on people such as those Nemesis writes about.

If governments want background checks on foreigners they welcome to their countries, the governments should budget annually for such checks. The burden of payment should not fall on the foreigner. 

[bomha]

If the criminal check is less than say eighty dollars or forty pounds, and only has to be paid by the teacher once in five years, that is a reasonable fee to be able to show "I am not a paedo."  That assumes that the check can be gotten when the teacher is outside their earlier country, etc.

But then we have the Thais.  Thais who usually do not know about time zones, the internet, or the difference between Scotland Yard and the FBI.  Thais who are too ignorant or lazy to do anything more than operate a Thai school in the most terrible fashion.  Thai police who know how to dress up for a press conference after they catch paedo #103, but not how to read a background check off a computer screen.

By all means, set up a good system to vet foreign teachers (and Thai teachers!).  But they will not do so.  They will continue placing Thai citizens at risk at school, who ride to school on motorcycles without helmets, or who ride buses that are dangerously driven by untrained drivers.

[airpuka]

Fair enough if they want to have background checks on the teachers but that wonts solve the real problem.The thai police need to crack down on this whole industry.It shouldnt be as easy as it is for pedophiles to go to red light districts and molest these kids.Why dont they stop these thai people from selling children in the first place? maybe they should have the tourist police volunteers do some undercover work and get these scumbags out of buisness.

[TFHOTA]

Why dont they stop these thai people from selling children in the first place? maybe they should have the tourist police volunteers do some undercover work and get these scumbags out of buisness.

Maybe not a great idea AP, I seem to remember a sting somewhat like you describe being carried out down Pataya way, read about it on either Teakdoor or Thaivisa, the general concensus was that the Farang bobbies were now marked men for the local cosa nostra!

[Thai Me Up]

However, if the cost of a criminal background check is placed on the prospective teacher, it will read as if you 'the prospect' has to prove your innocence before teaching can commence...

In most states in America, employees who work at schools - teachers, secretaries and custodians - must have criminal background checks and foot the bill for those checks.  I may be missing something, but I thought Thailand currently requires a police clearance letter for foreign teachers.  Isn't this old news?  Why whine about getting a letter from your home country's law enforcement if the Thai employer requires it?  If you were back in your home country, how would you feel if migrant workers refused to comply with your country's employment laws?  You'd probably say, "Go home if you don't want to follow our rules."  I would prefer if current anti-farang stories also mentioned that Thais must also have police background checks, but scapegoating of foreign workers makes for more interesting storytelling in Thailand, just as we villify foreign workers in our own home countries.

[Nemesis]

I agree with everything you say Thai me Up. if you don't like the rules, leave. If someone comes on though and says the laws suck and you should leave, they are considered anti-thai, why is that? I personally find Thai law and Thai rules to be  draconian and because of that, I choose not to be there. It doesn't make me anti-thai, it makes me aware that Thailand has the right to make any laws or rules they desire and i have right to state my opinion about them.

[Topper]

I concur and would I would rather me pay for it and get it done properly so there's never any question about the paperwork rather than have the school pay for it and it be questionable.

[Ronaldo]

If true TFHOTA, I stand corrected.

It may not have been clear from my post but what I meant to suggest about the background check is that it would be used by schools etc. to force the unknowing into difficult a position based on the economic expenditure of the teacher to obtain the post and not as you suggest (Thaimeup) "how would you feel if migrant workers refused to comply with your country's employment law?". Where I agree with you.

Clearly for me at least, the school should be able to present their MOE certification for that year so that prospective candidate on a 'quid pro quo' basis can make a value judgment as to the fitness of the school before spending any money on the certification requirement of him or her. Shifting emphasis on teacher's which seems to be the trend, only allows those schools and establishment that make life a misery for so many including their students to shift any shortcomings onto the teacher.

[retiredstillteaching]

If the teacher-applicant has to pay for the police background check, then it would seem that the presumption of guilt and the presumptive burden of innocence is on the teacher-applicant. I object to that focus.

Foreigners do have to comply with the requirements the host govenment places on them and that's that, period. I happen to object to being reuired either in my country or in a foreign country to pay for a police background check.

I don't have to love it or leave it. I can gripe and winge as I pay in either setting (or I could leave the foreign country). I know I don't make a habit of villifying fellow immigrants to the US, which we all were/are. 

[Thai Me Up]

I personally find Thai law and Thai rules to be  draconian and because of that, I choose not to be there.

And in America, you MUST join a teacher's union or else you cannot teach.  The union does nothing for you, never provides aggressive lobbying on the behalf of its teacher members, and when your school district decides to lay you off (tenured or not), the union doesn't provide you any outplacement assistance or legal counsel.  To me, that's a lot more obnoxious and DRACONIAN than paying a few MEASLY LOUSY BUCKS for a police clearance.

And in America, YOU pay for your own police check as well.  It doesn't mean you're guilty until proven innocent (sorry retiredstill), it is a job REQUIREMENT.  And in America, YOU pay for your own teaching materials because your school district and union are so corrupt and mismanaged, you can't even get to the one working xerox machine to copy materials because there aren't enough textbooks for your students.  I wish I could say that the USA is a shining example of efficient school bureaucracy, fairness and a place where teachers are appreciated by students and the community-at-large, but it isn't true.  That's why I choose Thailand to practice my craft. And I'm not going to whine about applying for and paying for my own police clearance.  If a little piece of paper gets me a job, I'm going to have it.  If you're too cheap or sensitive to get a police clearance, what the hell country do you come from where you can just waltz into a teaching job without any background or reference check?