Scouting sex abuse cases
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Scouting sex abuse cases are situations where youth involved in scouting programs have been sexually abused by someone who is also involved in the scouting program (an adult scout leader, or more rarely, a fellow scout). In some instances, the victims have laid formal charges, resulting in specific legal cases.
In the 1980s The Boy Scouts of America, the nations largest youth organization with 4 million active participants, created a sex abuse education and prevention program entitled the Youth Protection program.
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[edit] Past Problems
[edit] History of sexual abuse in scouting
J.L. Tarr, a Chief Scout Executive in the United States, was quoted in the 1980s in an article regarding sexual assault cases against Scout leaders across 50 states. "That's been an issue since the Boy Scouts began,” in order to affirm that Scouting has always had to be aware of these kinds of predators. Dr. Gene Abel, an Atlanta psychiatrist who has extensively studied child molesters, is quoted in the same article saying, "The volunteer organizations are just perfect for pedophiles, in the sense that they are just the ideal situation if they can get to a large number of kids, to kind of check out which ones might be the easiest victims."[1]
Of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been scout leaders, only a tiny minority have been charged with abusive behavior.[citation needed]
Courtney Pullen, a Denver psychotherapist and founder of Males Affected by Sexual Abuse, said in the 1980s that:
It (Scout troop) becomes a petri dish for sexual abuse. It's coming together of forces that greatly increase the odds of sexual abuse happening. You tend to have boys who are attracted to the Scouts, and organizations like Big Brothers, who are a little bit more predisposed to be victims because they're really looking for male role models. And you have Big Brothers or Scout leaders who are predisposed to perpetrators. So it's a great combination.[1]
Dr. Gene Abel, an Atlanta psychiatrist, testified in a 1988 lawsuit involving a Virginia Scoutmaster: "The Scout leader is not the only position that a sex offender can take, but is an ideal one for a pedophile".[1]
The vast majority of Scout leaders who have had sexual relations with boys appear to be “fixated” pedophiles (meaning they are primarily attracted to children).[1]
Special agent Kenneth Lanning, an FBI expert on child abuse, wrote in the 1980s that:
There are certain high-risk situations that arise in investigating historical child sex rings. Unfortunately, certain youth organizations inadvertently provide the child molester an ideal environment to operate a child sex ring. A scouting organization, for example, fulfills the sex ring offender's needs for: 1) access to children of a specific age or gender, 2) a bonding mechanism to ensure the cooperation and secrecy of victims, and 3) opportunities to spend the night with a victim or have a victim change clothing. The bonding mechanism of the scouts is especially useful to the offender. Loyalty to the leader and the group, competition among boys, a system of rewards and recognition, and indoctrination through oaths and rituals can all be used to control, manipulate, and motivate victims. Leaders in such organizations, especially those who are not the parents of children involved, should be carefully screened and closely monitored. Another high-risk situation involves high-status authority figures. As stated above, child molesters sometimes use their adult authority to give them an edge in the seduction process. Adults with an added authority (teachers, camp counselors, coaches, religious leaders, law enforcement officers, doctors, judges, and so on) present even greater problems in the investigation of cases of child sex rings. Such offenders are in a better position to seduce and manipulate victims and escape responsibility. They are usually believed when they deny any allegations. In such cases, the law enforcement investigator must almost always find multiple victims or recover child pornography or erotica in order to get a conviction.[2]
As a result of these findings, BSA had Special Agent Lanning help write the BSA's Youth Protection program in the 1980s to help prevent such abuse in scouting.[citation needed]
[edit] 1991 Washington Times investigation
In May 1991 the Washington Times published a major five-part investigation entitled “Scouts Honor” on sex abuse in the BSA prior to the introduction of the Youth Protection Plan. Staff from the newspaper had worked for two years preparing the series, reviewing internal and personnel records from the Boy Scouts; tens of thousands of pages of court records from more than 20 states; and more than 1,000 newspaper articles about abused Scouts; as well as interviewing more than 200 people, including molesters, families of victims, Scout leaders, sex abuse experts and lawyers. The newspaper restricted itself to reported cases of male Scout leaders abusing boy scouts prior to the introduction of its Youth Protection program. In summation they wrote “The Boy Scouts are a magnet for men who want to have sexual relations with children…Pedophiles join the Scouts for a simple reason: it’s where the boys are.”[1]
The series of articles drew on three historical sources:
- Historical “confidential files” (formerly known as the “Ineligible Volunteer Files”) within Scout records, with details on 231 Scout leaders banned from Scouting for sexual misconduct from 1975 through 1984 prior to the introduction of its Youth Protection program.
- 50 lawsuits against the Scouts by families of molested boys from around the US prior to the introduction of its Youth Protection program.
- A list from the BSA of more than 350 men banned for sexual misconduct from 1971 to 1986 prior to the introduction of its Youth Protection program.
The newspaper discovered that at least 1,151 Scouts reported being abused by their leaders over a 19 year period prior to the introduction of its Youth Protection program: they published a detailed list of 416 cases from 1971-1990 where a US Scout leader who was arrested or banned from Scouting for sexual abuse of Scouts, adding that experts said the real number of abusers and victims prior to the introduction of its Youth Protection program was probably several times higher. The newspaper articles later formed the basis for a book by the main journalist involved, Patrick Boyle: Scout's Honor: Sexual Abuse in America's Most Trusted Institution.
[edit] Legal actions
A number of families of abused boys have brought law suits against the Boy Scouts of America. For example in the five years from 1986 to 1991 the BSA and their local councils paid or agreed to pay more than $15 million in damages to settle lawsuits over boys who were sexually abused by Scout leaders prior to the introduction of its Youth Protection program, a study of 50 lawsuits against the Scouts showed. According to the Scouts federal tax returns, payments to just one law firm in Miami working on abuse cases for the BSA totaled more than one-half million dollars; the BSA insurance reserve, from which the damages are paid, stood at $61.9 million.[1]
The actual payment total, said the Washington Times in 1991, is probably far higher because the Scouts sometimes agree to pay damages only if the payments are kept secret. Keeping any type of damage award confidential is very commonly required by insurers.
In August of 2007, The Washington Supreme Court ordered the BSA to hand over documents concerning sexual abuse by Scout leaders. These documents show that since the BSA's Youth Protection Program was introduced, the organization has removed about 180 of its 70,000 leaders each year. [3]
[edit] Scouting related activities where sexual abuse had occurred
Records prior to the introduction of its Youth Protection program showed that abuse incidents were most likely to occur during campouts or while boys are sleeping over at the abuser’s home. Some of the traditions, situations and ploys that abusers had turned into conduits for sex are:[1]
- Campouts: According to Kenneth Lannings, "A skilled pedophile who can get children into a situation where they must change clothing or stay with him overnight will almost always succeed in seducing them". [2]
- Sexually related games
- Misuse of authority and loyalty
- Initiation rites
- Trips alone
- Sleepovers
- 'Awards'
To prevent abuse, all of the above activities are banned or restricted by the BSA's Youth Protection program
[edit] Response by the BSA
[edit] Youth Protection Plan
Scouting was among the first national youth organizations to address the issue of sexual abuse of its members and in the 1980s developed its Youth Protection program. The goal of the YPP is to educate youth, leaders and parents about the problem as a whole, and to introduce barriers to pedophiles using the Scout program to reach victims. A few cases still occur (see [1]), but sexual abuse among its four million members is now extremely rare[citation needed].
[edit] See also
- Boy Scouts of America
- Child sex abuse
- Peter Zuckerman
- Roman Catholic sex abuse cases
- Sexual harassment and abuse by teachers
- Youth Protection program (The official BSA sexual abuse prevention policy)
[edit] External links
- 1994 Article on CBS News and other reporting of sex abuse within scouting, in the American Journalism Review, March 1994[2]
[edit] Additional reading
- Patrick Boyle, Scout's Honor: Sexual Abuse in America's Most Trusted Institution, 1995. ISBN 0761500243
