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Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

Let us make it even more direct. All government employees who commit crimes while in the employ of any government agency should have the record made public if it leads to disciplinary action or above a class C misdemeanor which for many jurisdictions is fines up to 1k.

teachers, police, and fire, are some of the most protected classes of people when it comes to findings of wrong doing. Yet they are in positions we give our highest trust. From cops breaking the law to teachers getting caught abusing children, all are facts that are hidden from the public and at times only result in an offender being reassigned to different positions with pay.

having an accountable government starts by holding the individuals in it accountable. I would not just start with the three I listed, I would put them right in the same starting group as elected officials.

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Almost all criminal convictions are public record, unless sealed for a specific reason (youthful offender, perhaps).

Please cite an example of a teacher convicted of child abuse where that conviction was "hidden from the public." If anything, those cases are splashed across news websites even when there's nothing more than an accusation.

> Please cite an example of a teacher convicted of child abuse where that conviction was "hidden from the public." If anything, those cases are splashed across news websites even when there's nothing more than an accusation.

How could they?

The difference is "hidden from the public" vs "hidden from every human being every living". If there is a perpetrator/victim, there's at least two people that can break out of the nd/hush scenario.

And, well I'm a little surprised on the teacher angle (and even firefighter).. Have teachers really abused children and simply been "reassigned to different positions with pay"? Is this a common occurrence statistically?

I don't disagree with your sentiment. That said, these kinds of jobs are generally poorly paid positions relative to the amount of bullshit that they have to deal with pre-employment and during employment. If we want a higher volume of "good" folks applying for these jobs, we're going to have to make their lives easier and/or raise their pay. Teaching and Policework especially are both classically stereotyped as jobs that have idealistic, hard working, underpaid people who keep things running mixed with lazy/corrupt/incompetent folks who can't get fired because they need bodies or it's bad for the optics of the organization to do so.

It’s all about “incompetence”. Unions fight these disclosures because disclosing a policeman’s identity would potentially exclude the employee from certain jobs.

That gives the government an easy path to bypass the disciplinary process — just arrest an officer for some bullshit charge and transfer them to a job where their identity must be secret.

Except aren’t these convictions, not arrests?

What comes to my mind now, are countless stupid AAA movies, where some "hero" says of some former "hero", "no, we can't let the public know their hero failed them, they need to believe in the values he represented (not in the person)".

Teachers are the least protected class in this regard- teachers have been fired for posting pictures of themselves holding red solo cups on facebook.

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