Monday, March 15, 2004

Robert Killips / Lansing State Journal Ray Dries coaches hockey at Orchard Lake. With each youth sports league creating its own background-check policy, parents may be left in the dark about exactly what is being done.

Hockey league scraps state's error-prone system

Amateur group turns to Rapsheets after learning of errors

By Fred Girard / The Detroit News

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For the past two years, the Michigan Amateur Hockey Association has had one of the toughest policies for conducting background checks in the state.

They, along with youth soccer officials, require all names to be checked through I-CHAT — the State Police Internet Criminal History Access Tool.

After learning the findings of a Detroit News investigation into record checks of coaches, however, MAHA officials said they are scrapping their current system and will charge their 11,000 coaches a fee to be checked through a multistate system, Rapsheets.com, which could cost $3 to $4 per name, part of which MAHA may pick up.

“I hate to keep driving up the cost of hockey, but it’s worth it for the peace of mind,” MAHA official Larry Johnson said.

Johnson was responding to The News’ findings that I-CHAT is prone to input errors, receives some records slowly and others not at all, and covers only the state of Michigan.

He said he was startled to learn that two MAHA coaches who were convicted of sexual offenses involving minors still have clean records in I-CHAT.

Active warrants are not listed in the database. That’s why one Metro Detroit youth hockey coach successfully passed his record check — even though he is out of the country, fleeing arrest on rape charges.

Johnson said he will recommend to the state board that the association add $2 to the current $25 coaches’ registration fee to fund a nationwide criminal history check.

“A $2 increase is well worth spending if indeed it becomes a ... thorough background check,” said Jim Lewis, president of the Novi Youth Hockey Association.

Johnson, who is MAHA’s vice president for appeals and abuse, said he believes immediate action is needed.

“The real predators are very, very careful to keep themselves hidden,” he said. “We’ve probably taken seven or eight people out of hockey since we started doing these checks.”

The Grosse Pointe Farms- City Little League made a similar decision after learning of The News’ findings.

“It really was misunderstood what we would get from an I-CHAT check,” board member John Remillet said. “We thought it would spit out every possible thing somebody ever had done, and it’s not that at all.”

Remillet said his league immediately would begin checking all names through Rapsheets.com.