Level 3 sex offender is taking my class - struggling with how to act

[Caracal]

Are you a recently-conferred (i.e., younger) female? Have you dealt with abuse in your own past? (If you want to say...)

That might add to the discomfort if this offender's victims were female (one cannot make assumptions about either side of this equation). 

I do agree that one wants to be completely unbiased about how one treats a student, but there are also situations where that might be more difficult.

If it's fear for your own safety, or a trigger situation, that might be a different issue.

Finding help for your own responses in such a case might mean scheduling an additional appointment with a therapist or other support person just to talk through the issues it presents for you and come up with an approach that leaves you feeling safe and unlikely to be taken aback by anything that might come up.

One can't avoid such encounters, and one wants to avoid projecting past their likely scope of threat, but one can anticipate and prepare for the effect they might have at a more personal, even imperceptible level.

M.

I'm male, and have been fortunate not to suffer any past abuse. So, no, this isn't a concern stemming from fear for my own safety. The safety of other students in the class was something I spent a lot more time ruminating on. In the end, I am electing to trust that the criminal justice system has allowed him to return to public life.

I do wonder whether it's worth a discrete word with the college admins or university counsel, though. We have a lot of minors on campus and, while I don't have any taking my class, I'd be curious to know what safeguards are in place and what would be expected of me if I were encounter another situation with greater legal risk.

edited: spelling

Didn't mean to imply you were being weird. I guess I've looked up those lists as well. In terms of discussing this with the administration. I guess I would be guided by my worries about how much fear of child sexual predators has gotten out of control and often led to bad and unhelpful policy. Part of the problem is that while class 3 does suggest something about the severity of what he did, it provides you with incomplete information. Just because someone was convicted of something doesn't mean they did it. It also doesn't really help you figure out whether he's a continuing threat in any way. Different sort of situation, but I always think of someone that a friend became close with who was in prison for life for killing his stepfather at 18. The whole thing seemed bad and messy and the guy's life was sort or a mess. I think there was some abuse involved and the stepfather was not a great guy, but also it wasn't the kind of thing where it was really a case of self defense and the guy  didn't think what he did was ok. He also was, by the time my friend got to know him, in his 30s and not much of a risk to murder anyone. He did something terrible at a particular moment in his life.

Some people who commit sexual offenses against minors are a contenting threat. It would be hard to dispute that. Some murderers are bad, dangerous people who shouldn't be wandering around in the world. But, I tend to believe that there are some people who do something awful who probably aren't much of a risk to do it again. I'm not making any judgement in this case, because we'd have to know a lot more than we can-or should-know about all of this. But I wouldn't vaguely express concern about somebody to the administration based on nothing but a long ago conviction. You can't really know what the ramifications of that would be for this person. Now, it would be different if this was guy had a job working with minors on campus, but, I can't see how the just the fact that there are minors on the campus rises to the level of something where it outbalances the potential harm

[apl68]

Now dealing with a similar situation.  In this case the released offender has a very definite history of mental illness.  We had to ban him from our premises last year when he went off his medicine and started behaving in a manner that was scaring away our other patrons.  The police actually had to escort him off the premises when he attempted to ignore the ban.  Now he's newly released from a state mental facility and petitioning to have the ban rescinded.  We're checking with law enforcement to see what his situation is.  The staff are unanimous in telling me that they don't want him around.  This guy really scares people.

[Morden]

I'm sorry you're in this situation, but I don't see it as similar to the OP's. In your situation, you have someone whose behavior has recently been alarming and who is trying to get access again. The OP is struggling with how to deal with someone who is already in class and who hasn't been behaving in an alarming way for the people in the class. For the OP, I would just suggest that the fact that there are minors on campus isn't a great reason to raise the alarm unless, of course, your students have direct contact with these minors as part of your program.

[mamselle]

Well, people who make people in a large group uncomfortable and may or may not create difficult situations for others is a commonality.

M.