So I just discovered that I have been working next to the waste of oxygen that raped my best friend several years ago. I work in a manufacturing environment and I know that you can’t fire someone just for being a sex offender unless it directly interferes with work duties (in the US). But despite it being a primarily male workforce he does work with several women who have no idea what he is. He literally followed a woman home, broke into her house, and raped her. Him working here puts every female employee at risk. How is that not an unsafe working environment? How is it at even legal to employ him anywhere where he will have contact with women?
I mean you are making a fair argument that there’s a distinction between your own morals and the binding rules in place. You are free to feel a lot of things that are very bad, but when you act on them you will bump into reality.
That said I think the original comment was meant to say that the only reason he is here is because society through the legal process has found him to be safe to work there.
Now to get beyond the feelings against him OP can obviously talk to HR and make sure they get some distance, but if the courts found him not guilty, he deserves to be there. Imagine serving years in prison, working on yourself until the government finally finds you fit enough to enter society again, only for ppl to kick you out of your job again because of something you tried so hard to leave behind. That’s why the prison system usually focuses on rehabilitation instead of punishment in most civil countries.
What I’m saying is, the court’s ruling does not have to change the way you feel, but the court also says you have no right to take his job from him unless he commits crimes again. No feeling can measure heavy enough to weigh up against the right for him to live a normal life.
Yeah, exactly. Rehabilitative justice is hard. His victims should never be expected to be near him again, but society needs to give people chances to demonstrate rehabilitation. Denying someone access to half the population guarantees they never rehabilitate. But it’s also fair to say that in America we don’t really bother rehabilitating people and if someone has been to prison multiple times for rape well, I don’t want to be alone with them either and I’d be uncomfortable with my employer forcing me to be alone with them. And that’s the situation as OP has clarified and yeah it definitely sounds like it may be a hostile workplace.
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Correction, right to a safe work place, not feel safe. Feeling safe and being safe are different things. And this disconnect is actually a real problem.