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| Fingerprinting Has Gone High Tech |
Today's "perp walk" was necessitated by the fact that I got conned into coaching my son's little league basketball team. The season is more than half over (we only have 3 games left), but someone decided that all of the volunteer coaches needed to be fingerprinted so that we could "protect the kids."
I understand that times are different these days in light of scandals at Penn State and the Catholic Church, but you would have thought that someone might have come up with this idea before the season started.
For the record, I have nothing against protecting kids, but it's a pain to have to go through all of the rigamorale of filling out the application, making an appointment, leaving the office during the middle of the day to drive to some random Mailboxes, Etc. location, and pay $17 bucks for the privilege (they don't accept cash. Great!). That's why I refer to it as a "Perp Walk."
The process was actually pretty amazing. No ink, but I just put my fingers on a scanner and I could see the results blown up on the screen right away. I would have posted a copy of my fingerprints here but $17 bucks didn't get even get me my own copy. And unlike CSI there was no instantaneous result showing that I had "passed." My results will be back in about two weeks. Or just in time for the season to be over!
My only hope is that the trip isn't a complete waste because if I get conned into coaching again next year--a stretch given our team's less than stellar record at this point in the season--I'm hopeful that my "prints" will be in some database somewhere so I'm not subjected to this same process again.
Don't you love the red tape involved in volunteering!
ReplyDeleteOver here we have to have a 'blue card' to work with kids... (Dave and I both have them for Surf Life Saving) problem is most of the criminals seem to have them too! So our system sucks but on that note I am all for protecting kids but seeings as 9 out of 10 children are hurt by relatives maybe a but more focus on community would be better than making everyone go blind on paperwork.
My rant over.
Fingerprints? That sounds exciting! When I was hired at my security job, I had to get the virtual fingerprints also and I didn't get a copy either....Good luck with the coaching, maybe you can do a post on your team?
ReplyDeleteI've done the perp walk a few times for teaching jobs. I always feel like I'm being accused of a crime. In the old days, they used the ink and paper, which stained your criminal digits. At least the high tech scanners don't leave you looking like a common criminal!
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