Letter to the editor: More clearances not solution to protecting children

Regarding Dennis Smiddle’s letter “Schools must work harder to protect children” (Oct. 6, TribLIVE): While I agree with the overall premise of working harder to protect children in schools, I disagree that another mandatory clearance will be sufficient.

First, the fact that the letter was written indicates that the background check system has many flaws. Background checks can never be used as a character witness or as a character reference. The institutional child sexual abuse caught and convicted did not come from people not passing multiple background checks.

Second, people passing multiple background checks may have committed crimes in the past but were never caught. Other people fit into the category of passing multiple background checks, then sexually abusing children. Still others have thousands of child pornographic images on computers and phones. And the actual truth may never be revealed within their lifetime.

Third, by mandating more clearances, there may be a larger “false sense of security” within these institutions and with parents that never existed in the first place. As we have seen far too many times with child sexual abuse, successfully passed background checks cannot predict human behavior.

Lastly, other child security systems need to be in place to protect children from child sexual abuse in any form. That unfortunate “false sense of security” can become a death sentence for any child.

George F. Aul

Belle Vernon