Mr. Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop, a 30-year-old American national from Wisconsin, was recently arrested for drug and firearms offences (The Daily Mail, Jan. 7, 2012). Prior to October 2011 this individual was known as Jeffrey Drew Wilschke; however he legally changed his name as he is fully entitled to do. Not only is he entitled to change his name, he is not in fact required by law to tell the authorities about it unless he is subject to certain control orders, a point usually ignored by criminals.
Most Western countries allow such name changes and place the privacy of the individual above the right of the state to know.
One can simply visit one of the Deed Poll websites and the application process takes about 20 minutes. It will cost a mere 33 British pounds, about 55,000 Korean won. There are no limits to how often an individual can change his name.
Once he has his new identity he can obtain a new passport and other documents which bear no trace of his former identity. Usually they clone the identity of an individual they know to have graduated from a certain college knowing that if checks are made they will come back as positive.
Several years ago I was running a Korea-based organization called Safe Schools, created to identify pedophiles. It was in 2007 I believe that we discovered this name change pattern being exploited for those seeking teaching positions in Korea. The matter came to light during a homicide investigation I was managing in Cambodia which unraveled a network of Western males sexually exploiting children. We informed all relative governments.
I recall a conversation with a senior member of the Education Ministry responsible for sending foreign teachers to schools throughout the peninsula. Having explained to her how we would remove this threat from the system she agreed with how necessary it was but that it sounded very expensive. I told her that it would cost nothing. She replied that as a government body they would have to pay for any service they received. I said that if that was true, then for the sake of child safety we can organize some sort of payment structure. She then said that as they had no money they could not afford to purchase any form of service.
It was sadly so typical of the response we came to expect from government officials trying to protect themselves from having to make a decision rather than protecting children from sexual abuse.
The root of this problem is that promotions are generally related to time served, not creativity. Make a mistake and you’ll be looked over or pushed out. Thus individuals are promoted on the basis of not making mistakes. It is therefore the case that people at the top are there because they haven’t made mistakes, and they have achieved this by not trying anything new.
When explaining the threats posed by sex offenders, convicted or otherwise, using deed poll systems to change their identities to gain access to children through the education system it was never a case of them not believing the data we supplied; it was simply a case of them not wanting to change their failing policies because to do nothing was safer than trying something new.
As a result this threat has never been addressed and remains today, and the only cover these officials have is the fact that abused children find it very difficult to report matters of sexual abuse. It is easier to jump off a building.
I would suggest that the name chosen by Mr Beezow … is no more ridiculous than the policies which continue to allow and encourage sex offenders into this country to abuse our children!
By Anthony Hegarty
Anthony Hegarty is managing director of Discreet Risk & Security Management Consulting, which specializes in assisting companies with interests outside Korea to manage risks in new business environments ― Ed.
