Posted on 09/17/2012 9:38:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
ver two decades, the Boy Scouts of America failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public.
A Los Angeles Times review of 1,600 confidential files dating from 1970 to 1991 has found that Scouting officials frequently urged admitted offenders to quietly resign — and helped many cover their tracks.
Volunteers and employees suspected of abuse were allowed to leave citing bogus reasons such as business demands, "chronic brain dysfunction" and duties at a Shakespeare festival.
The details are contained in the organization's confidential "perversion files," a blacklist of alleged molesters, that the Scouts have used internally since 1919. Scouts' lawyers around the country have been fighting in court to keep the files from public view.
As The Times reported in August, the blacklist often didn't work: Men expelled for alleged abuses slipped back into the program, only to be accused of molesting again. Now, a more extensive review has shown that Scouts sometimes abetted molesters by keeping allegations under wraps.
In the majority of cases, the Scouts learned of alleged abuse after it had been reported to authorities. But in more than 500 instances, the Scouts learned about it from boys, parents, staff members or anonymous tips.
In about 400 of those cases — 80% — there is no record of Scouting officials reporting the allegations to police. In more than 100 of the cases, officials actively sought to conceal the alleged abuse or allowed the suspects to hide it, The Times found.
In 1982, a Michigan Boy Scout camp director who learned of allegations of repeated abuse by a staff member told police he didn't promptly report them because his bosses wanted to protect the reputation of the Scouts and the accused staff member.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Evidently many already have.
Really never thought about it before but maybe “Boy Scouts” migh be an accurate term for the molesters...
If they just changed their policy to allow this behavior, then everything would be ok.
Yes, an obvious need for homosexual leadership is made evident here. . . /s
I hope that we don’t get dozens of posters defending this.
Maybe people will publish post after post about school teachers.
Wonder how many of those molesters were gay? Just curious.
And,why now is this being “unearthed”? Really? If this has been going on since 1919,seems to me that those who seek to tear down the BSA would have been screaming this “hard evidence” from the rooftops.
More evidence of exactly how predatory these monsters behave. We literally have to stand guard and fight to protect our kids, even in seemingly safe harbors like the scouts and churchs.
Quick! Get the FR Catholic Haters Club in here so that they can start hating the BSA too!
The LA Times rooting out predatory homosexual molesters? Seems an argument to me that the Boy Scout’s vetting process should be even stronger.
The Scouts can’t win no matter what they do...they will be attacked.
Eagle Scout here.
As bad as this is, and it’s horrible, school districts and the churches did the exact same things in the past. Get the offender to resign and give him/her a good rec for his/her next job out of town.
Saw it happen personally once. The guy (a teacher) ended up re-offending of course and finally spent 12 years in the state pen.
My son and bro-in-law are Eagle Scouts. Anyone who attacks the Scouts can kiss my ass. They did a lot of good in my life for my son.
RE: finally spent 12 years in the state pen.
What happens when he comes out?
We had a assistant Scout master who was not married, mid 30's,ex Navy guy who just left the troop out of the blue. He did not act gay, no feminine but I hate to say this he had that gay look to him. just the facial look..can't put my finger on it but you have all seen the look.
Couple years back at my HS reunion couple fellow Scouts talked about him and we all had our gut feeling about him.
“Wonder how many of those molesters were gay? “
All of them. The gays always say that a molester is not gay just because he picks boys. But i notice you dont see many molesters with a mix of male and female victims. Some accused of it seem to have molested girls. Others specialize in boys. But don’t dare pretend that it was same sex attraction.
A pedophile molesting boys is a homo. And some homos marry women to cover their tracks. Keeping gays out of Boy Scouts is the best thing they can ever do.
Volunteers and employees suspected of abuse
The key word is "suspected". The cases are those where there was only suspicion? Is it possible to assume that the boy scouts overreacted by causing forced resignations when their was no real evidence?
were allowed to leave,
they are volunteers and they are free to leave whenever they want for no reason. But it is written in a way that indicated the Boy Scouts should not have left them leave. How do you accuse someone of misconduct and avoid libel suits when there is only a suspicion?
And what i’m hearing here, is that the Scouts escorted someone to the door as soon as they found out someone was sick like that. They probably couldn’t always prove it, but they tried. Maybe they werent perfect, but they never set a molester in with their boys, or transfered them around inside the organization to hide them as far as i can tell.
“My son and bro-in-law are Eagle Scouts. Anyone who attacks the Scouts can kiss my ass. They did a lot of good in my life for my son.”
I don’t consider this story as an attack piece on the Scouts. It just gives more ammunition to the Boy Scout organization and conservatives not to admit openly homosexual men as leaders.
The Scouts are a great organization but if they have this kind of dirty laundry it does need to be dealt with.
the list was probably an anachronistic approach from that 1919 era. Find a pervert in their midst, they expell them and keep a list so they can’t come back.
Though it seems hard to believe, there was a time when this was poorly understood, and very difficult to prosecute unless caught in the act.
This was an era when a pregnant girl might be sent away to have the baby. It’s just the way things were then. The BSA was doing what they thought was right, and were trying to keep homo/pedophiles out of their organization.
No scandal here.
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