Local TV station King 5 just broke a shocking story about the Boy Scouts keeping thousands of whey they called "Perversion Files" on sexually abusive adults who were involved with the Boy Scouts.
Secret Boy Scout files reveal pattern of child molestation in WA state
Since 1919 the Scouts have been compiling files on Scout leaders-scoutmasters, assistant scoutmasters and other volunteers from across the country-accused of sexually abusing children; many of whom were young scouts in their troops. The files number in the thousands.
As the decades progressed, Scouting officials with access to the perversion files, kept in locked cabinets at Scout headquarters in Irving, Texas, had amassed thousands of files. Their own records showed sex abuse inside Scouting wasn’t isolated to one or two parts of the country. It was rampant in every state including Washington.
Attorneys representing Scouts in abuse cases say this collection of confidential files should have prompted the Scouts to be pro-active in preventing more abuse.
“The files grew from tens to hundreds to thousands. They ended up having a body of knowledge probably unlike any youth serving institution in the United States; demonstrating that pedophiles were infiltrating their ranks," said Mike Pfau. Pfau is a Seattle attorney who has represented dozens of former Scouts in sex abuse cases.
By the 1960’s Pfau and other critics say the Scouts had enough files to know they needed to act to protect their young scouts. But instead of instituting safety policies and alerting parents and volunteers that the program was a magnet for pedophiles, Pfau says the Scouts circled the wagons to protect the Boy Scout brand.
"The Boy Scouts of America had an institutional knowledge that pedophiles were infiltrating their ranks, molesting their scouts, and they knew about it, long before they took appropriate measures to protect kids," said Pfau.
I was a Boy Scout growing up. I have many fond memories of the Boy Scouts, but as an institution the Scouts just lost a lot of their luster in my eyes. They put the well being of the institution above the welfare of the boys in their charge.
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