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Florida theme parks are looking to quell fallout from a six-month CNN investigation of police and court records that unearthed theme park employee arrests for sex crimes involving children.
All told, 35 Disney World employees, five Universal Studios employees and two SeaWorld employees have been arrested since 2006.
To date, 32 individuals have been convicted, according to reports. None of the cases involved children visiting the parks.
"Providing a safe environment for children and families is a responsibility we take very seriously. We have extensive measures in place, including pre-employment and ongoing criminal background checks and computer monitoring and firewalls," said Jacquee Wahler, a spokeswoman at Disney. "The numbers reported by CNN represent one one-hundredth of 1 percent of the 300,000 people we have employed during this time period. We continue to work closely with law enforcement and organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as we constantly strengthen our efforts."
"We have zero tolerance for this kind of activity," said Tom Schroeder, vice president of corporate communications at Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Parks & Resorts. "We deal with situations such as this immediately and permanently… All our team members undergo thorough background checks as part of the hiring process."
"We fully support and cooperate with law enforcement in their work to keep our communities safe and are supportive of continuing evaluation and discussion of the best ways to protect children from predators in our communities," said SeaWorld spokesman Nick Gollattscheck.
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