"...we failed to defend Scouts from those who would do them harm" - Statement from the Boy Scouts of America.
"The release means that alleged abusers, and the names of Scout leaders who failed to report them, will be made public soon in tens of thousands of pages of confidential documents __ one of the largest troves of the files the BSA has ever been forced to produce."
Let's look at the numbers:
1,622 reported cases
5,200 alleged pedophiles
20 years of concealment
Put their names in the "perversion files"
Let's do some math:
930 files created over
20 years
That's 3 a month.
Three reported cases of child sexual abuse a month - and they did nothing. Put a name in their "perversion files"
"The Scouts began keeping the files shortly after their creation in 1910, when pedophilia was largely a crime dealt with privately —not publicly. The organization argues that the files helped them track offenders and protect children. But some of the files released in 1991, detailing cases from 1971 to 1991, showed repeated instances of Scouts leaders failing to disclose sex abuse to authorities, even when they had a confession."
"Critics contend the organization's legal battles reflect a long-standing effort to protect the Boy Scouts' reputation, and to try to limit any lawsuits."
Reputation over Responsibility - Responsibility to our
children.
I have often asked what price do you put on a life. Because when you sexually abuse a child, you have taken that life. That life the child was supposed to lead is forever changed. So what value do we place on our children? Why do we see over and over again that the reputation of an institution is greater than the health and well being of a child?
One thousand, six hundred and twenty-two victims, that we know of. With the other statistic we know that only Only between 12% (see Hanson, 1999) and 30% of cases (Finkelhor, 2008) are reported.
That means there are potentially another 5,406 - 13,516 victims out there.
And this is just of the files that are still in existence. The Boy Scouts also had a policy of destroying these "perversion files."
References
Title Factors related to the reporting of childhood sexual assault
Publication Type Journal Article
Year of Publication 1999
Authors and Hanson R.F., Resnick Saunders Kilpatrick. Best H. S. B. E.
Journal Child Abuse and Neglect
Issue 23
Pagination 559-569 - 569
Date Published 1999
Title Sexually assaulted children: National estimates and characteristics
Publication Type Journal Article
Year of Publication 2008
Authors and Finkelhor D., Hammer A.J.Sedlak H.
Journal NISMA RT
Date Published 2008
URL http://www.ncjrs.gov/...