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18 Oct 12 - 03:17 PM (#3422203) Subject: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Jack the Sailor So sad..... Good that they were released though... On orders from the Oregon Supreme Court, more than 1,200 confidential files the Boy Scouts of America kept on suspected child molesters from the 1960s through 1985 have been made public. |
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18 Oct 12 - 03:22 PM (#3422208) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: gnu Let the lawsuits begin. |
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18 Oct 12 - 03:25 PM (#3422212) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Jack the Sailor Well yes. A law suit made it public. Molesters never seem to dealt with unless the organization is forced to from outside. |
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18 Oct 12 - 04:23 PM (#3422258) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Jack Campin One of the most stunning revelations the paper uncovered is that the files show Scouts "failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public." Meaning they didn't circulate poison-pen letters to the entire world? Horrifying. |
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18 Oct 12 - 04:34 PM (#3422263) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Jack the Sailor Meaning they allowed criminals to re-offend. Sometimes in new troups. |
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18 Oct 12 - 04:59 PM (#3422277) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Charley Noble Yes, I would expect parents and victims to be filing suits against Boy Scouts of America central for millions of dollars. I'm sure that most of the scoutmaster perps were heterosexual men, outstanding members of their class. Be prepared! Charley Noble |
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18 Oct 12 - 05:21 PM (#3422295) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Jack Campin What do you think "hid the allegations from parents and the public" means? OF COURSE they should have done that. They should have gone to the police if the allegation merited it (investigatig such allegations is their job) but there is nothing special about allegations of child sexual abuse that justifies spreading smears unchecked. |
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18 Oct 12 - 05:36 PM (#3422300) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Charley Noble Jack Campin- Take a deep breath and please explain what your position is. Are you assuming there is no merit to these 100s of allegations? Charley Noble |
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18 Oct 12 - 06:24 PM (#3422335) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Jack Campin No. But that piece of garbage journalism is advocating a witchhunt that would make the Inquisition look like peanuts. NOTHING justifies the dissemination of unchecked allegations, which is what they're advocating. |
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18 Oct 12 - 06:43 PM (#3422351) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Joe Offer I was a leader in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts from about 1981-1995. At the time, I was also friends with Bob Mazzuca, who served as Chief Scout Executive from 2007-2012 (our kids were classmates). Since I did background investigations for a living, I did informal reference checks on everyone I took on as an adult leader. I found two where there was a question, so I quietly disposed of their applications and didn't allow them to work with kids. It wasn't anything definite, so I did not pass the information on to Scout headquarters. There was a big problem with sexual molestation uncovered by the Boy Scouts in the 1980s. The Scouts instituted a system of "two-deep leadership," where individual adults were never allowed to be along with a boy, and every event had to have at least two adult leaders. I think this precaution worked quite well, although no precaution is perfect. I believe the Scouts were challenged by the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), who demanded their right to have loving relationships with boys. The Scouts did work hard to prevent child molestation, and they have continued to do so. In hindsight, it wasn't enough, so now the lawsuits will start rolling in. The Scouts also got legislation passed in many states which allowed or required fingerprinting of adult leaders in youth organizations. Adult volunteers also received training on how to prevent sexual abuse. Why did the Scouts keep their "perversion files" secret? I'm guessing, but I suppose it was because the information was gathered informally, through hearsay information and confidential witnesses. Most certainly, some of the information collected in such files is inaccurate, and disclosure of such information could subject the Scouts to lawsuits. And there's probably another reason - disclosure of such information would cause panic among parents, and might trigger a huge drop in membership. And most likely, such a panic would be far out of proportion with the threat. The Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church have close parallels in this area. Both organizations actually did a lot of work and spent a lot of money to prevent child molestation. The Catholic Church started spending large amounts of money on this problem as far back as the 1960s. The Boy Scout problem surfaced more recently, but the Scouts were hard at work on this problem as early as the 1980s. Jack Campin, I think you are correct - while an organization must pay attention to all allegations and hints of misconduct, disclosing such information can be a very bad policy. -Joe- |
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18 Oct 12 - 08:27 PM (#3422394) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Bobert Here we have the Boy Scouts saying that they don't want to take in any kids who might be gay but have a history of perverted adults using the Boy Scouts to find new victims??? I don't get it??? B~ |
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18 Oct 12 - 10:14 PM (#3422421) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Rapparee When I was a Boy Scout (just before I began scouting girls), any leader who molested someone would have been investigated and reported to the police -- after the shit was stomped out of him by a coterie of other Scout leaders and various fathers. Yes, we Scouts would have reported such a thing in the same way that those of us who were altar boys (I was also such) would have reported molestation. I will grant you that my BSA experiences weren't, well, necessarily Scout-like. Stealing beer and bringing it on Camporees was frowned upon even back then as much as smoking was, as was playing games by throwing hatchets in the direction of each other. There was good reason we weren't permitted sheath knives in my troop! But these were Scout-on-Scout, not adult-on-Scout. While the activities were frowned upon they weren't sexual in nature, apart from the dirty jokes and frankly I don't think we really understood those. And let me hasten to add that those involved seemed to have turned out pretty well: running solo MEDCAPs in Vietnam, working with the poor in Central America, Peace Corps, MBA, MS.... But sexual molestation -- no! |
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19 Oct 12 - 07:21 AM (#3422525) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Jack Campin When I was about 10-11 (c.1960) in New Zealand I did some yoga classes. The guy who led them was also a scoutmaster and a Sunday school teacher. Shortly afterwards he got a two-year jail stretch for molestation. I think it was the Scouts who found him out. The yoga class was entirely his thing with no higher leadership to report to. He'd designed a uniform for it, loose cotton swimsuit-like things. I think the point of it was so he could peep inside while we were up in shoulder stands. We kids had him pretty well figured out but we just thought his proclivities were quaint. I don't think any of what he did was actually damaging. And he was a pretty good yoga teacher. His attitudes to religion were another story. I wasn't in his Sunday school but found his authoritarian stuffiness about religion pretty repulsive. So he did quite a lot to turn me off Christianity, for which I owe him thanks. |
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20 Oct 12 - 03:25 AM (#3422944) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: SPB-Cooperator One needs to be careful about making records of 'alleged' abuse public, especially where the accusation is malicious or based on hearsay, as if the person accused is genuinely innocent, his or her life can be destroyed once the accusation is in the public domain. |
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20 Oct 12 - 03:58 AM (#3422948) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Backwoodsman I was a Boy Scout for several years. No-one molested me, and I never heard of anyone being molested. Just thought I'd add a little balance. |
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20 Oct 12 - 04:56 AM (#3422958) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle Anyway, they're asking for it - with those cute little shorts that seem to say - come and touch my woggle, lets rub sticks together in the wood....... No one molested Backwoodsman! volunteers.....!?! Not even for a bob a job...? Oh well! No molestation badge for you! |
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20 Oct 12 - 10:11 AM (#3423041) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: saulgoldie Yeah, Bobert. Itsa good thing they don't admit gay scouts. Otherwise it might bring down the moral purity of the organization. Eh, whatever. Saul |
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21 Oct 12 - 09:50 AM (#3423528) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: foggers The most important group of people to focus on here are the children who have been victims. If the organisation failed to involve the proper authorities (police, social workers) then they acted illegally and unethically. But the disclosure of unconfirmed allegations is wrong, not just because the accused who may be innocent can suffer, but more importantly so can the alleged victims in terms of the consequences of their names becoming public. Victims of childhood sexual abuse experience often lifelong psychological torments of guilt and shame because a) perpetrators exploit and induce those feelings as part of the control and secrecy, and b) western societies give children fundamentally paradoxical messages about sex, which creates a culture that perpetrators can exploit for their own purposes in selecting and grooming victims. |
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21 Oct 12 - 10:18 AM (#3423546) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Deckman This is just the tip of a bigger iceberg. When I was a freshman in college, in Seattle, I worked at yet another well known national youth organization. I'll NOT name it for now, as I know it will become public soon. While I was there, the director of that facilty was suddenly replaced and he was moved from Washington to Oregon. It didn't take long for the reason to become known to all of the staff. It WAS yet another incident of child abuse. That man is long dead, but I suspect that many of his victums are still suffering. The truth will out ... bob(deckman)nelson |
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21 Oct 12 - 08:28 PM (#3423876) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Don Firth I joined the Boy Scouts when I was thirteen. A couple of my buddies belonged to Troop 150 and it sounded like a lot of fun, so I joined up too. We met every Monday evening in a large room in Fairview Grade School, Scoutmaster, two Senior Patrol Leaders (older scouts), and usually an instructor of some kind. I learned a whole bunch of valuable stuff, such as first aid and CPR (suppose you're having a heart attack and some thirteen-year-old kid dashes up and saves your life?). Also a lot about nature, the environment, and stuff that basically turned me into an environmentalist. Several "Camporees," when several troops within an area would camp out over a long weekend (such as Memorial Day) and experience the outdoors up close and personal. Cookouts, of course, and how to make a "hunter's strew" out of whatever is available. And yeah, I learned how to start a fire without matches, but I always carried a Zippo lighter with me. You know, "Be Prepared" and all that. Three summers running, I spent two weeks along with 1,500 other scouts at Camp Parsons, out on the shores of Hood Canal. The first week was generally taken up with informal classes on various subjects that could lead to merit badges indicating proficiency in a wide range of subjects. Every night, a while after dinner, the customary gathering around the big campfire, with a lot of story-telling and singing. The second week consisted of four-day hikes and cruises. Walking with a pair of crutches, I wasn't much on hikes, but I had strong shoulders, and the camp included Sea Scouts. I would go on the "Mariner's Cruise," in which two twenty-six foot life boats (someone had donated to the camp) propelled by sail when the breeze was up, or eight oarsmen (four to a side, galley-slave fashion) up or down the canal, camping on beaches overnight. The only thing of a sexual nature that seemed at all endemic were the occasional speculations among a horde of normally horny teen-aged boys about Camp Robbinswold, a camp like Camp Parsons but for Girl Scouts some twenty or thirty miles south of us also on the shores of Hood Canal. In all of this time, I never encountered anything that smacked of child abuse or predatory scout masters or scout leaders. This is not to say that it never happened, but I never encountered it, nor did I know any other kids who did. Many decades later, I heard that the Boy Scouts—at least in some troops and in some areas—were emphasizing such things as hyper-patriotism and evangelical, fundamentalist Christian values and a number of other things that I had never particularly associated, more that peripherally with the Scouts. And now, allegations of sexual abuse. What the hell's going on!?? Don Firth |
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22 Oct 12 - 12:46 AM (#3423943) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Joe Offer Don, your experience of Boy Scouts and mine sound quite similar. It was a good experience for me. I experienced bullying in sports because I was a terrible athlete, but always felt very good about the Boy Scouts. I almost made it to Eagle Scout - two merit badges short. I left Scouts when I entered the Army in 1970. I was registered as an adult leader from about 1981-1995, usually serving as Cubmaster and district song leader. There were times I felt the Mormons had too much influence on Scouting in California and that there was too much favoring of right-wing politics - but it wasn't overbearingly so, and I usually found the Mormons to be great to work with [i.e., they liked Crazy Joe's crazy songs]. I was associated with units in Catholic and Lutheran churches, and they weren't tied into the rightwing stuff at all. It did both me that women were not accepted as leaders (other than den mothers) until the late 1980s. I was also bothered that the Scouts required a belief in God, but they only expelled those who were honest enough to say they were atheists. What I call "functional atheists" were left alone, as long as they didn't say anything. I have to say that the gay thing was not really an issue when I was in Scouting. High school kids were not "coming out" in the 1980s, and the Scouts were not as self-righteously opposed to gays as they are now. I don't think it should be an issue in a boys' organization - I don't think any kind of sex should be part of scout activities, so why should there be any reason to exclude gays? I'm surprised that the Boy Scouts kept its right-wing identity during the administration by my old friend Bob Mazzuca, who served as Chief Scout Executive from 2007-2012. When I knew him back in the 1980s, he seemed to be a very moderate sort of guy. He was my predecessor as Parish Council President in a moderate-liberal Catholic parish in the area Sacramento. -Joe- |
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22 Oct 12 - 03:09 AM (#3423960) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Boy Scout Perversion Files Don Firth: "And now, allegations of sexual abuse. What the hell's going on!??" So, let me get this right....Boy Scouts with other Boy Scouts, or with the Scoutmaster is a perversion????..or you're saying it's 'sexual abuse'??? I guess when they ..till they meet(or meat) a political activist........then it becomes a 'Civil Right'... GfS |
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22 Oct 12 - 04:39 AM (#3423994) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: JohnInKansas Many decades later, I heard that the Boy Scouts—at least in some troops and in some areas—were emphasizing such things as hyper-patriotism and evangelical, fundamentalist Christian values and a number of other things that I had never particularly associated, more that peripherally with the Scouts. At least when I was briefly in Scouting, it was very common for a troop to be "sponsored" by a church. The scoutmaster was nearly always an "upstanding member" of the same church that sponsored the troop, and quite frequently was one of the most vocal proponents of whatever details of doctrine were most favored by the church leaders/elders at the time. This might be part of the reason why some troops were a little "off-center" with respect to the policies and emphases touted by the national organization, and even at the age of 10 or 12 I recognized some "deviance from policy" and found the encroachments of religious doctrine (incompatible with national scout doctrine) in several troops in my area to be a little "oppressive" (or maybe the word is just "offensive,") when compared to the handbook. I had a lot of difficulty acquiring any merit badges, since none of the three or four scoutmasters volunteered for accessible troops were capable of understanding simple math, science or logic, so it was impossible to get a "sign-off" when I'd finished one. (I spent several hours trying to explain to one the "mathematics" of "E = IR," since he couldn't read the equation. I was afraid to go on to "I = E/R.") My scouting career was fairly brief. John |
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22 Oct 12 - 05:36 AM (#3424012) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Big Al Whittle yeh mine too. I was a badly behaved cub. |
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22 Oct 12 - 12:46 PM (#3424221) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: akenaton This seems to be treated very lightly here. Charly says youths being abused by "heterosexual scoutmasters"....in my book anyone who is sexually attracted to young men is definitely of homosexual orientation. Exactly as in the priest abuse scandal. Perhaps Charly should have said "posing" as heterosexual scoutmasters. Youth organisations have a fair number of men who wish to have access to older boys, many in sham marriages; I know of three in my small locality who were caught, two were prosecuted....the third , the worst offender escaped prosecution seemingly because of his age, tho' regularly abusing his male foster children and anyone else he could get his hands on. |
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22 Oct 12 - 01:44 PM (#3424248) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: frogprince "Perhaps Charly should have said "posing" as heterosexual scoutmasters" News flash: almost anyone could plainly tell that Charley was being ironic, and referring to the typical situations in which molesters have very successfully passed themselves off as "heterosexual men, outstanding members of their class." |
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22 Oct 12 - 01:53 PM (#3424254) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: frogprince For further consideration: what is the likelihood that a man who hoped to prey on boy scouts would approach the scout organization admitting to be gay ? |
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22 Oct 12 - 02:01 PM (#3424260) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Megan L I am suprised anyone would even consider working with children these days. Then people would moan about nobody working with young people. |
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22 Oct 12 - 02:29 PM (#3424283) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Great point, Frogprince! At least you acknowledge it!! GfS |
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22 Oct 12 - 02:37 PM (#3424288) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: frogprince Good, GfS; you acknowledge that an openly gay person who seeks to become involved in scouting is very unlikely to have preditary intentions. |
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22 Oct 12 - 02:41 PM (#3424290) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Did you mean predatory? GfS |
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22 Oct 12 - 03:30 PM (#3424305) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: The Sandman I was in the Woodcraft Folk,I was never molested, not even by a tree |
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22 Oct 12 - 03:32 PM (#3424309) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Ya' gotta watch out for them damn trees!..You know 95% of all forest fires are caused by trees! GfS |
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22 Oct 12 - 10:24 PM (#3424528) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: ollaimh joe offer is absolutely right that the catholic chirch and the boy scouts have a lotn in common, but he's desd wrong on conclusions. both followed a policy of hiding criminal activity and coecing and attacking the abused and using every back channel use of power and influence to stop their offenders being exposed. one of the conclusions from the perversion files i saw , was one lawyer said he was astonished how the boy scouts were able to manipulate local authoritues to protect the guilty. and he said there should be criminal child endangerment charges against these abusers. this happened recently against msgr willima lynn for covering up preistly abuse and posting abuser priests to new posts without warning the parents of the new post. he was convicted of indictable criminal child endangerment . people are really fed up with the cover up experts getting aay with the worst abuses and that is just the beginning. there was a great canadian investigatibe report on the boy scouts not informing new troups of abuses that leaders did in old troups. frankly no good person can trust these people running the scouts and catholic church. they have shown over and over that they will use any tactic and use any illegal activity to protect their heirarchy and sacrifice the children. lets hope there arte many many law suits now that the cover up files are out in the open. these criminals do not repspond to anything else. |
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22 Oct 12 - 11:39 PM (#3424551) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: John P Anyone in a position of authority within an organization who gets told that adults he oversees are even possibly involved in child abuse has to call the police immediately or be complicit in the child abuse. The fact that their authority and the adults in question are within the organization means they are involving the organization in their cover-up. Calling the police is NOT spreading unsubstantiated rumors; it's reporting possible abuse, which needs to investigated every time, no matter what. Failure to report suspected child abuse is why so many people are upset at the Boy Scouts and at the Catholic Church as organizations. It's interesting that so many people on this thread are saying that this is a witch hunt or that they had great scouting experiences and never saw any abuse. I was a scout myself and had a generally good time until the new scoutmaster came along. He was an ex-marine drill sergeant and we did formation marching, marching, marching, and not much else. But why would love of an organization and positive experiences with it cause anyone to scoff at proven instances of Boy Scout authorities not reporting sexual abuse? I don't think a sexual abuse scandal within the Boy Scouts is necessarily an indictment of the whole organization unless concealment of abuse was a policy of the organization at the highest levels. It is, however, a very real indictment of the individuals who cared so much about the image of the organization that they were willing to collude in child rape; any individual who didn't call the police should be investigated and probably prosecuted. Should the organization have been better at screening scoutmasters? 20/20 hindsight says yes, of course, but I haven't made up my mind about that, both because I don't know enough about the whole case to decide and because I know it was a different world back then. I don't think people were as aware as we are now of how many child rapists there really are in the world, or to what lengths these rapists are willing to go to gain access to children. On the other hand, the people who were doing the cover-up must have been at least at the middle-management level and they were clearly not well-trained or well-supervised. It seems unlikely that an organization like the Boy Scouts hadn't had internal discussions on the issue of abuse of power by adult volunteers, sexual or otherwise, and what their field managers were supposed to do about it. But really, the whole story is that anyone who knows about child rape and doesn't call the police needs to go to jail along with the rapist. |
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23 Oct 12 - 05:07 AM (#3424625) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Joe Offer Well, John, I disagree.... but I also agree with you. The information I received was very nonspecific - no dates, no details, no names of victims; and the problems did not occur within the context of any Scout activity. All I was told was that somebody "heard" that the applicant was suspected of questionable conduct with children - and that was enough for me to drop the person from consideration for a volunteer position. This information was vague and unsubstantiated. As a federal investigator, I felt bound to refrain from relaying information unless there was some substance to it. I did the same on the job - I'd hear all kinds of crap from all kinds of crazy people, but I relayed only that information that had at least a minimal level of credibility. -Joe- |
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23 Oct 12 - 06:56 AM (#3424662) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Deckman I'm going to jump in here and try to add something usefull. Back in 1957, I was associated with another well known national organization that benifitted youth. I was a college student and was a minor player in a local Seattle club. The director of that particular club was quite prominant and charismatic. He was a leader. Then suddenly one day he was no longer there. He simply disapeared. And NO ONE ... I mean NO ONE ... in a postion of authority would say what happened, where he was, or anything. It was like a time warp ... suddenly ... he simply never existed. I kept pushing to find out answers to the obvious questions. I quickly made enough noise that I soon was told to "shut up" and "stop asking questions." I soon made the decision to do something else ... I just left the organization and found another part time job. Now that I'm 75, instead of 20, I wish I'd kept pushing ... but I was too young and in-experienced to do better than I did. I'm sure my story is a very common story in horrible events like this. Here's my point: Seattle, in the 1950's was NOT what Seattle is today, 60 years later. The culture was very different. In the fifties, no one talked about issues like this. I was not just covered up by the leaders of the various organizations, but also NO ONE ELSE wanted to talk about, think about it, or deal with it. When I say this, I am NOT defending, in the slightest, any actions taken by anyone. I'm just saying that times were different. I'm sure that very soon, other organizations than the church and the scouts will have their "day in court." It won't be pretty ... it never is. I post this with respect to all the opinions and statements posted to this thread ... bob(deckman)nelson |
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23 Oct 12 - 08:00 AM (#3424684) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Jack Campin It's interesting that so many people on this thread are saying that this is a witch hunt or that they had great scouting experiences and never saw any abuse. I was the one who used the phrase "witchhunt" - and I didn't suggest one was taking place. Yet. I said that the hack journalist who wrote the linked article was advocating one. I had no scouting experiences at all. I wasn't about to go anywhere near such a militaristic outfit. Basically they were a recruiting arm for the army, and as such far more institutionally evil than any child rapist. (Somebody who just commits a rape to get their own jollies is nowhere near in the same league as somebody who trains rapists to go abroad and fuck for the state). |
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24 Oct 12 - 02:07 AM (#3425224) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: Joe Offer I never thought of the Scouts as particularly militaristic when I was a member, although the uniforms are dismayingly similar to military uniforms. In most troops, it was about camping and hiking and having a good time, although there were some units where the leaders were certainly militaristic. And hey, it's about the only situation in the United States where boys actually sing. -Joe- |
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24 Oct 12 - 04:57 AM (#3425246) Subject: RE: BS: Boy Scout Perversion Files From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Deckman, Back in the fifties and a bit afterwards, people didn't 'publicize' this type of activity like they do today. It was felt, '..just get the guy away from the kids, and 'besmirch' or 'slander' no one...either the person or the organization....just go away. ..and yes things have changed...so for the better, some for the worse, and some because their guessing! GfS |