In a decision believed to be the first of its kind west of the Mississippi, city leaders in West Covina, Calif., are poised to mandate all youth sports leagues, city-sponsored or not, fingerprint volunteer coaches in an effort to weed out convicted sex or drug offenders.
"We have 2,300 volunteers, and the question is, what should be the city's role in fingerprinting those volunteers? People here have been discussing it for some time. It has been evolving, and we are ready to develop an official policy," West Covina Community Services director Tom Hatch said. "Overall reaction has been pretty positive so far. It's a big step, but it's the right thing to do to keep kids safe."West Covina's five-member City Council has tentatively backed the measure, Hatch said.
A handful of cities in the Eastern United States have already adopted mandatory criminal background checks for volunteer coaches, and lawmakers in New York are considering legislation that would require statewide screening for all youth organization volunteers.
Utah officials also have pondered background checks for sports league volunteers. The difference is, no city or county government in the Beehive State is ready to take on the responsibility of regulating leagues existing inside their jurisdictional boundaries but not directly funded by the government.
"We are so big that we are having problems dealing with our own leagues," said Kay Cameron, sports district director for Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation. "We couldn't handle governing leagues that aren't our own."
Cameron says her department is within months of implementing some kind of screening system for its 10,000 volunteer coaches. The background checks could come in the form of fingerprinting, court records checks or simple questionnaires.
Similar measures are set for Provo, where Parks and Recreation director Roger Thomas says the city plans to have some sort of screening plan in place by July 1.
One roadblock for all screening processes has been cost. However, the increasingly litigious nature of American society may force leagues to consider the price of not running checks.
Kris Frederickson, co-founder of Orem-based Safety For Youth Inc., says the checks may be cheaper than facing a potential lawsuit from an abuse victim's family.
"The question is, how much protection are (leagues) legally required to provide for this child," she said. "You can get sponsors from the public sector. It's amazing how many sponsors are out there. That's win-win for everyone."
In August, Safety For Youth, a nonprofit organization, is expected to begin contracting background checks for government agencies and independent leagues. Frederickson says while league organizers struggle to adopt policy, coach abuse, which is widely unreported, especially by boys, is rising, and she hopes her organization will grow statewide.
"Pedophiles and sexual predators understand that this is a perfect environment for them to take advantage of young people. . . . They're very sophisticated. They seduce the family by saying things like 'your kid has a lot of potential.' It allows them to get close to the family and child," she said.
In West Covina the issue reached critical mass after a much publicized incident involving a convicted child molester who was allowed to coach in the city's Little League baseball system, Hatch said.
But as officials in the Southern California city of 106,000 have considered mandatory screening, the issue has become a growing can of worms.
Besides cost and right to privacy issues, Hatch said West Covina leaders wonder where to draw the line. Some in the Southern California city have even considered banning coaches who are verbally abusive.
Frederickson says restrictions should be limited to sexual abuse convictions. Thomas argues that a coach convicted of DUI probably shouldn't be driving around a van full of children.
The West Covina City Council, which was originally scheduled to vote on the fingerprinting issue May 2 , has pushed a decision back indefinitely as lawyers and city planners hash out specifics. Meanwhile, sports authorities in Utah weigh similar questions but maintain policy changes are near.
"It's definitely a concern. We've had four or five meetings solely designated to this topic," Cameron said. "We don't want to discourage youth coaches, but we want to protect our kids."
You can reach Brady Snyder by e-mail at bsnyder@desnews.com