LITTLE LEAGUE TO MANDATE BACKGROUND CHECKS

World’s largest youth sports organization will require screening
to help prevent sexual offenders from gaining access to players

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (Oct. 9, 2002) – Local Little League programs will be required to conduct background checks on managers, coaches and other volunteers who come into regular contact with players, it was announced today by Stephen D. Keener, president and chief executive officer of Little League Baseball, Incorporated.

The newest phase of the Little League Child Protection Program goes into effect immediately, for the 2003 season. Leagues worldwide are now required to either conduct a check of a sexual offender registry, or a criminal background check, for the state or country in which the volunteer resides.

Little League is the world’s largest organized youth sports program, with about 2.7 million baseball and softball players ages 5-18 in the U.S. and 100,000 in other countries.

“First and foremost, this mandate is for the protection of children in Little League,” Mr. Keener said. “Second, this will help maintain Little League as a environment in which children are safe from those who would seek to gain access to children and ultimately harm them. Third, it will help protect volunteers and leagues from possible loss of personal or league assets because of costly litigation.”

New regulations for the 2003 season now require volunteers at the local level to complete and submit a volunteer application, giving consent to a background check. The applicant is also required to list references and prior convictions. Those required to apply include every manager, coach, board of directors member, and any other volunteer or hired worker who provides regular service to the league and/or have repetitive access to, or contact with, players or teams.
The local Little League board of directors must then check to determine if the applicant is listed on the sex offender registry of the state in which he or she lives, or , if no sex offender registry is available, must conduct a criminal background check, unless prohibited by law. More than 40 state governments now provide free access, many via Internet search, to a database of registered sex offenders living in that state.

Since 1996, when it was recommended by the Medical And Safety Advisory Committee of USA Baseball, Little League has recommended use of a volunteer application and the conduct of background checks. In 2001, Little League’s official web site (www.littleleague.org) began providing local league administrators in the U.S. with recommendations for conducting background checks on volunteers, as well as links to all searchable state sex offender registries. The address for the Little League Background Check Database, which includes information regarding which states offer the service for free, is:

http://www.littleleague.org/childprotect/map.htm

“Advances in technology and the wider availability of sex offender registry information make this the right time to expand the Little League Child Protection Program,” Mr. Keener said. “It is an excellent example of how a government can make a resource available, and allow a private organization to take advantage of it. The only losers in this program will be those who would prey on our most precious resource.”

Since 1988, it is estimated that more than 10 million adults have volunteered in some capacity in Little League programs nationwide. During that 15-year period, nine individual Little League volunteers are known to have been involved in the sexual abuse of a Little Leaguer. There are currently more than 1 million adult Little League volunteers in local Little Leagues nationwide.

“Thankfully, incidents of sexual abuse of Little Leaguers by adult volunteers have been extremely rare,” Mr. Keener said. “While we realize that no screening process can ever be 100 percent effective, we believe this will be a useful tool in helping our local league volunteers prevent these criminal types from gaining access to children through their local program.”

Mr. Keener added that access to the Little League Background Check Database at www.littleleague.org is not limited to chartered Little League programs.

“This program is available to anyone, anywhere, who has access to the Internet,” he said. “Whether it’s another baseball or softball program, or any other sport or youth activity, we want to share this information with anyone who has the best interests of children in mind. And we urge all programs to follow Little League’s lead in making these screenings mandatory.”