elitts

I'm not sure how this is a false timeline, what I was talking about is the response time of government agencies, not how long the child would be "safe" for. Obviously if you think a kid is being abused "right now" you would call 911 for immediate help. But If you call any state agency except a police or fire emergency line, you aren't going to get someone jumping up out of their chair to go knock on the child's door to check on them. It will take a certain amount of time to record the information, do background checks, assign an investigator and then get the investigator out to make a first contact. THAT is what would take somewhere between a couple hours and a day or two. I was using debate and persuasive/argumentative writing terminology which tends to sound somewhat combative. I don't actually feel personally attacked or slighted. More education certainly can't hurt. In particular I think educating people on what types of behaviors to look at and when to scrutinize closer is a great idea. I know that before the YPT I took when I started as a Scouter, I hadn't seen anything that really looked at what "grooming" was. But I just don't view time and language the same way you appear to. You appear to think "immediately report" literally means "drop everything and file a report right this second", while I think (in the context of these laws) that "immediately report" means "make the report as soon as you can reasonably do so). Given your view, I guess taking 10-15 minutes to talk to Legal might seem like an unconscionable delay, though I'd be curious to know how fast you actually think Sheriffs and DSS personnel respond to these reports. I think that perception is going to be entirely dependent on your starting viewpoint of the organization. If you are suspicious of organizations in general, you will find these policies creepy. Personally, I wouldn't bat an eye at a company who had a policy that read: Anyone working here who becomes aware of child abuse is legally required to report it. You are to immediately inform your superior that you need to visit the Legal department and upon your arrival a staff member will log your report and immediately connect you with the appropriate legal authority.

When I was talking about emotional appeals I was referring to the logical fallacy known as an "appeal to emotion"; I wasn't accusing you of being overly emotional or anything. Though I'll grant you that my tone was perhaps a touch harsher than I really intended. That said, my problem with your arguments is unchanged. The issue we are discussing is whether or not it's reasonable for employers to establish a policy requiring contact with the Legal/HR departments before making a required report of abuse or neglect to a state agency. You believe it's not reasonable. But your actual arguments to support your position don't have anything to do with why allowing such a system wouldn't work, or how it would result in children being unsafer or what problems may occur if those employer systems are utilized. Instead your arguments have simply been: The Jerry Sandusky case happened and that proves indirect reporting is a problem. This is a "Red Herring" fallacy. Indirect reporting isn't what we are talking about, we are talking about Direct Reporting, simply with an extra step involved. Some state laws use the phrase "immediately report" and one state specifies that the report to the state must occur before informing your employer. This is an "Appeal to Authority". It's factually true, but doesn't actually prove the merits of the position, it simply argues that because some states agree with the position, it must be right. "It is discussions like this one that make me question whether scouting should continue. If the focus isn't on protecting kids, then ... " This is an "Appeal to Emotion". Rather than argue for your point you have implied that by even discussing the issue we are failing to protect kids. "this seems like an awful lot of backflip rationalization to support protecting an institution and not a kid." "You have put an awful lot of thought into defending deferred reporting" These are both "Ad-Hominem Attacks". Rather than present a reason why your argument is correct, you've attacked my motives for making the argument in the first place. So all that said, let me ask you specifically. Given that a non-emergency response to a report of abuse or neglect is going to take several hours at a minimum and more likely a day or two and with the understanding that reporting to your Legal/HR department does NOT absolve you of making a report to the state; Why would allowing companies to have a policy requiring staff to speak with Legal before making their report be a problem? There is a difference between acknowledging past failures in order to learn where improvements are needed and public self-flagellation in order to make other people feel better. Practically speaking, discussing the failures from pre-1980 has absolutely nothing to do with making scouts safer today because all of those failures occurred under a framework that no longer exists in a society that no longer exists. Even the failures of the 1980s and 1990s aren't particularly relevant to safety today because you were talking about a society that was still relatively unaware of the wide-spread nature child abuse (sexual or otherwise). But I do agree that sugar coating or glossing over the current situation and recent problems along with what works and what doesn't is not something that is sustainable.

Yes, I do tend to put a lot of thought into policies of this nature, trying to consider the viewpoints and needs of all the people and organizations involved because I know that compliance only works when people buy into both the reasons behind a policy and the procedures required to comply with it. Furthermore, I think avoiding unintended consequences is fairly important with laws and policies involving sensitive issues because it can be significantly harder to fix problems after the fact than it was to establish the law or policy in the first place. And of course there is the fact that deciding someone else's rights (even if it's a corporation) need to be sacrificed wholesale on the alter of "protecting the children" never sits well with me. Plus, frankly, when I see someone weighing in on what should be a reasoned and logical discussion with an argument laden with emotional appeal or slanted wording it does tend to make me go the extra mile when countering it. Take for example your rephrasing of my argument as "defending deferred reporting". The clear implication of that statement is that I am somehow supporting the idea that there should be a significant time lapse allowed between when someone develops a suspicion of abuse and when they should report it. And while your statement is technically correct because ANY delay would technically constitute a deferral, your deliberate phrasing is clearly designed to make people think I'm arguing for waiting days or weeks to report a suspicion when I've been pretty clear in saying that all I'm talking about is making a 5-10 minute phone call to a legal department or HR before making a report to the legal apparatus of the state.

I think you are overestimating how widespread the knowledge is. I think everyone is aware that Nurses, Doctors, LE officers and the like are mandatory reporters, but those designations get updated sometimes without a lot of fanfare and it would be easy for some of the less common reporters to not realize they'd been so designated. Kinda like the state that designated all "Independent Contractors" as mandatory reporters. This line of discussion started because you were implying that XYZ church was doing something either illegal or immoral or just wrong by instructing the priests to contact the legal department if they have knowledge of abuse. And you are exactly right that I'm arguing that it's reasonable for an employer to say "You are a mandatory reporter. If you witness abuse or have suspicion of it occurring, contact the legal department so that we can immediately put you in contact with the appropriate entity for making that report in this state." Requiring notification of a legal department is NOT interfering with someone making a report. My point in diving into the 9 states that mention the word "immediately" was to show that even though they use the word "immediately" they don't generally mean it literally, they generally mean "within the next 12-48 hours". And again, there is only 1 state that actually specifies that notification of the authorities must happen before notification of an employer. Just how conversant do you think the average licensed driver is with traffic law? I assure you the correct answer is "marginally". I'm not actually against people immediately calling the authorities, but I understand why a company who can be held liable for an employee's failure to act might want to oversee and monitor their employees as they go through the reporting process and I don't agree with people attempting to imply nefarious or uncaring or irresponsible behavior because they've established a monitoring policy that doesn't functionally impede a person's compliance with the law. Without such policies, one scenario I can easily see happening is an employee suspecting abuse and calling 911 to report it. Then, thinking they've complied with the law they consider it "handled". Except the law in their state specifically requires notifying the Dept. of Social Services (not 911), and that's how reports are tracked as well. So then the abuse proceeds through the investigation process, someone is arrested and convicted and then a reporter goes back and says "So why didn't your employee comply with the law? If this employee didn't comply with this aspect of the reporting requirement, how many other employees are neglecting the law as well?". And the company and the employee can protest all they want that it was reported, but it wasn't done right, so all kinds of ugliness ensues. Whereas with a "report to legal first" policy, they could have logged the report, informed the employee of the correct number to call to make the report and then followed up with the DSS to make sure action was taken. And I guess I'll flip the question on you. Who is it harming if a report takes 3-4 minutes longer to get made when it's not going to be acted upon immediately anyway? (since it takes time to receive a report, assign it and get an investigation started) Obviously this doesn't include situations where abuse is happening "right now", in which case 911 is definitely where you'd call.

I'm not sure why you think this. A cram down only requires that a plan be better than liquidation, have at least one creditor's support and be fair. You could argue that the judge won't do it, but it's certainly an option for her.

BSA has influence over the LCs, not control. It's very much like some of the more involved franchise agreements where the Franchisor can control virtually every aspect of how a business is supposed to operate, but in the end, if the franchisee decides to tell them to pound sand, the only action they can take is to revoke the agreement; they can't step in and implement the changes they want. Actually, assuming the bankruptcy is discharged, the "new BSA" organization wouldn't have ANY liability for claims made in the future if they occurred prior to the discharge since it would effectively be an entirely new organization. That's why they'll probably be able to get insurance again. After all, the insurance companies haven't dropped them so far, why would that change when their exposure would be exponentially smaller? As far as safe, well, I'd be curious to know what "experts" you are talking about. I mean, scouting can't ever be totally safe, but then nothing we have our kids doing is totally safe. But "reasonably safe"? Personally I think it's already "reasonably safe" and clearly so do all the people who still have their kids in the program. I've let my son participate in activities for years that could result in death or serious injury; the potential for abuse is just one of the risks people need to be considering and attempting to mitigate. I mean, ultimately, much of the adult/youth sexual abuse could have been (and can be) avoided simply by being aware, talking to your kid in advance and paying attention to people's behaviors.

Actually, the judge will decide the compensation contribution, not the victims. The victims merely get to vote on which plan they like. Ultimately if the TCC puts forward a plan that takes everything and leaves the BSA with $100 in it's bank account and the victims all vote for that plan, the judge will still be able to say "Nope", and put her own plan in place. Using the average jury or settlement award for this calculation is rather silly as anything but a bargaining tactic. Scale matters and you just can't ever use the cost/price/value of an individual item as a direct measure for the cost/price/value of a large group of them. I mean, the average payout in the Catholic Church bankruptcies of $288,000 per victim even though individual jury awards were much higher. I have to think we'll see a similar ratio here. This is one of the areas I struggle to comprehend also. Particularly since the actual impact on the person probably aught to factor in and it's hard sometimes to envision how some of that stuff would impact other people. I will say that in the matrix someone posted a while back, I kinda thought the breakdown was way to heavy on the mild end of things, even if those claims aren't nearly as numerous as the more horrific ones.

My apologies, I missed that sentence regarding the 9 states that require immediate reporting. Although, apparently the Child Welfare Information Gateway has some of the same document creators as the BSA since that section isn't entirely accurate. _______________________________________________________________________ California : Requires reporting with 36 hours Connecticut: Requires reporting immediately Hawaii: Requires reporting immediately, but does not require reporting of suspicions resulting from Penitent confessions Illinois: Requires immediate reporting, but allows that if two or more people suspect the abuse, one person can be designated to file the report. (Which makes it clear that some discussion before filing a report is possible without the report failing to be "immediately filed".) *Indiana: Hospital employees must file a report immediately with the head of the hospital or the designated department. All other mandatory reporters must file a report immediately with the sheriff or health department. Michigan: Requires filing of an "immediate report". Though given the phrasing, I believe the definition applicable here is "direct or primary" as opposed to "without delay". (The usage is similar to the phrase: "X was the immediate cause of death" as opposed to "X caused the death immediately".) New York: Requires immediate reporting IF the reporter encounters the incident in the course of their business, but not if they are "off duty". (Also only requires one report of a single incident if more than one mandatory reporter is aware of the situation.) Pennsylvania: Reports must be made immediately to reporting line Tennessee: Requires immediate reporting to law enforcement, a judge in some circumstances or the DSS. But specifies that organizations are within their rights to establish a protocol for the filing of such reports as long as the internal procedure doesn't inhibit the filing of the report. West Virginia: Requires reporting not more than 24 hours after suspecting abuse * Indiana is the only state with a statute that actually specifies the notification of the organization should happen after a report is filed. ________________________________________________________________________ Personally, I think the amount of variation shown with just these 9 states means telling your staff to contact the Legal Counsel's office to insure compliance with all relevant laws just makes a lot of sense.

There is nothing in there that contradicts my point. (and actually the variety of information regarding reporting laws displayed there makes it that much more useful for a Priest to contact Legal before making their report) Being a mandatory reporter has nothing to do with following protocol for your employer when the information you've got resulted from your employment. Even in states where a Priest is a mandatory reporter with no recognition of confessional confidentiality, there's nothing that says "The mandatory reporter must report the abuse immediately without discussing it with anyone else" So there would be nothing wrong legally or morally with a Priest following a policy to have their Legal Counsel department set up the meeting with police/Social Services so that they can report the abuse.

I'm a Michigander. Well, as far as why it's happening. The biggest reason is the fact that in Michigan everyone is limited to 2 terms, so pretty much every AG is setting up their run for Governor and this is guaranteed headlines for Nessel, particularly since her much discussed prosecutions for the Flint water crisis aren't making as much noise as I'm sure she hoped. But also, the state is primed for such investigations after the horrendous discoveries of years of inaction with the Nassar case. As far as why she was vague, well, I'd imagine she knew next to nothing about the BSA bankruptcy until someone pointed it out to her as a potential way to make bolster her reputation. And I'm also guessing she doesn't actually know who she's targeting and this is basically tip fishing to see what accusations get turned up that can be acted upon. The one potential upside I'm hoping for is that she finds some of the accused abusers who maybe didn't have charges filed against them before and sends them to prison for a good long time. At least, that's what I hope for until we work out a deal where prisoners can permanently surrender their citizenship and be exiled to a life as a subsistence farmer in Africa or some barely habitable island somewhere.

You need to look at the whole text to get the context of that last line. This whole form appears to primarily revolve around taking information from Priesthood Leaders who have had something confided to them and is not really aimed at people reporting things they have direct knowledge of. All of these lines of text are talking about the Priests being informed of the abuse, not witnessing it themselves. And what that final line means is that the standard process for the church officially relaying a 3rd party report of abuse is that the notification goes through the Legal Counsel office. That seems entirely reasonable for any organization. At the very least, I've never heard of any organization with required reporters that doesn't have a formal process for making those reports. I know when my ex-wife was teaching, if they had suspicions of child abuse they had to report them up the line to the principal and then a meeting would be arranged with police or Protective Services to discuss the matter; the teachers certainly weren't instructed to just "go ahead and call the County without letting anyone here know".

I think you misunderstood the form. That form, and my comments are all about how the abuse hotline folks are supposed to act upon complaints and "You see it you report it" is the preferred approach per their form. It specifically specifies that the phone operator should urge the witness to report it to the police themselves. All those other actions detailed on the form are the ones the phone operator is supposed to take, not the person who witnessed the abuse.

Seems entirely reasonable to me. Different aspects of an organization are going to focus on only those aspects related to their purpose. This form is about how the Abuse Line worker should deal with an accusation, it's not about how the church should handle the matter internally and it's not a general statement of priorities. Encouraging the person who is making the complaint to report it themselves is a good idea because the person with first-hand knowledge is who the police are really going to need to talk to anyway. Advising a perpetrator to retain legal counsel AND turn themselves in is also a good plan. I don't care who has done what, our legal system is flawed enough that ANYONE, even a serial rapist, should be advised to retain counsel. From a practical standpoint, it also reduces the chance that something will happen incorrectly in an investigation or arrest that results in the case being kicked for procedural reasons. Telling an Abuse Line worker to call the legal counsel when an accusation does need to be reported is similarly the only practical way for an organization to deal with something like this. Yes, it does increase the opportunities for a bad actor to intercept an accusation and attempt to cover it up, but it also makes sure that official reports get handled the right way each time and allows the organization to assign a report to a particular staff person to deal with it. Having contacts with the police and DA be handled by helpline attendants would be hugely disruptive to the helpline and it's the wrong position for handling those issues anyway. I have to imagine that if we could see the instructional documents for the legal counsel's office, somewhere in there you'd see instructions along the lines of "Contact community outreach to arrange for victim services".

A adult staff member was raping 15+ year old staff members and only got warnings? Wow, I would have thought that unlikely for a number of reasons; particularly since you must be talking about recent years since being openly gay wouldn't have been allowed for a staff member before 2015(I think?) I don't understand how they could have any other choice? (and this isn't me arguing, it's me legitimately not understanding) Are you talking about while the contract details are still clouded or without knowing the total amount they will be held responsible for? I'd think getting a hard total on how much will be coming from insurance companies would be great for everyone (except maybe the insurance companies) but I don't see how that number could be developed without actually processing each submitted claim.

That same argument would work in the case of hospitals though. They keep seeing malpractice claims and they make settlements, but they haven't implemented anything to stop the malpractice. (To be clear, I'm only arguing that the existence of suits and (particularly) settlements don't automatically indicate culpability since in so many cases settling even a rediculous case is preferable to litigating it) As far as their public statements, well, that's PR. Even if the BSA was firmly convinced that they have no moral or legal culpability, there is no possible statement to be made in a situation like this but than to apologize for "not doing enough" because any attempt at making a rational explanation of what you actually think is going to get you crucified publicly, regardless of whether or not you make valid points. In fact, I could probably make the argument that "I'm sorry we didn't do enough..." is kind of the corporate version of "I'm sorry I made you upset" in a relationship.

It's fairly clear from the post that Qwaze was attempting to illustrate a point regarding legal liability and the peculiarities of it under US law, NOT actually directing blame at the victims for either filing their cases or staying quiet. It was an insensitive method of making the point and was riding the line of what will be acceptable in this thread, but it was not the kind of outright "victim blaming" that was an issue a few weeks ago. So.. To everyone out there, while there is a responsibility upon the reader to read posts in their entirety and consider the context before responding, there is also a responsibility as a Kind and Courteous person to consider the way our wording might impact people sensitive to the issues here. I'm not saying you can't make a pointed argument when necessary, or that everything must be sugar coated or wrapped in cotton, but let's at least attempt to be cautious around the known sore points.

I'm confused, what "paid counselors" did BSA hire with a known history of abuse? Most pedophiles are pretty dedicated to maintaining their cover as "respectable" and mask themselves fairly well. And what other action do you think the LC should have taken? Typically with accusations of this nature you'd get an immediate suspension with orders to "stay away" following a review of the accusation, but then the actual investigation takes a couple of months because you have to do everything officially, with plenty of notice. And then only after a complete investigation would official sanctions be imposed. So 4-6 months sounds fairly normal. But the existence of lawsuits and settlements in our country doesn't always indicate a "problem". If it did then virtually every major hospital in the country would be guilty of ignoring their "problem" since most of them have plenty of suits and settlements on their books. Lawsuits and settlements (in and of themselves) are just a fact of life and the cost of doing business in the US.

Yeah, one page is about the right length to make a letter that will actually get read (really more like 3-4 paragraphs); so even a dedicated person is going to put that novel on the bottom of the pile. Unfortunately it's clear from his complaints that most of what he's upset about revolves around a mistaken understanding of how organizations, events and activities work in general. I work (volunteer) for an organization that runs an annual arts festival that is run almost entirely by volunteers, with only one paid part time person. Even with all staffing being free, the budget is over $450,000 for a one weekend event and we still usually either break even or make or lose 5%-10% of that budget each year. And the most lavish thing we spend money on is a golf cart rental for me and my staff (my son) to drive around so that we can patrol the perimeter of the event to maintain the barricades. So while I do question some of the BSA LC expenditures, in particular the amount of travel for trainings and conferences they regularly send staff on, I don't have any suspicions that all of BSA is just a giant perpetual fundraising scheme designed to funnel money to some nebulous person/persons. Though I do think that non-profits in general are often wasteful when they try and compete with for-profit businesses on pay scales for top leadership.

I don't have specs on Lifestraw, but I do know that the vast majority of those contaminants are fairly heavy and if you simply scoop out a bucket/bag or whatever of water and let it sit for 10 minutes before filtering it, much of the nasty will sink to the bottom. It's also just a good way to prolong filter life. At a bare minimum I generally have the scouts filter water through a piece of fabric before running it through a water filter. Saves on the backwashing.

I think sports has to be kind of a category of its own. Generally masks outdoors don't do much because the wind makes a buildup of aerosolized virus pretty much impossible. But when you are playing football and a couple of lineman spend a few seconds forcefully breathing directly into the face of their opponent from a 1 away, maybe a mask might be useful, even outdoors. Not to mention that many HS athletes were doing things like sharing cars to get to practice, and you can bet most weren't wearing a mask. As someone else mentioned, HIPAA rules only apply to health care providers, health plans and health plan clearinghouses Who must obey HIPAA Except that none of those other things you've mentioned are contagious.

The reason I think the fallout would be different is that I view much of the collective anger over the situation (as opposed to the anger any one victim might feel) as being directed at the BSA primarily out of a lack of a clear target for the "masses". You can't pick any one perpetrator to be angry at for 80k+ cases, so instead that anger falls on the BSA which is a large faceless organization. But when you get to the local level that shifts for a couple reasons. First, because it becomes easier to pick a "poster child" perpetrator to vilify. Take for example your abuser of 5+ guys; he could theoretically become the target of all the generalized anger if he was the worst known predator. And then since there is a known, living target for the active rage, the local council is left only having to bear the remainder anger of having "not having protected the children somehow". And since it's a local organization being accused, it means that angry people are more likely to know the individuals who were part of the organization which humanizes it and makes it easier to think "people were doing the best they could". Of course, I could be wrong, and I'm sure your scenario will be more likely in those districts that have a truly huge number of cases or if there are districts where the leadership was blatantly unconcerned with even trying to screen scouters.

Lets be clear here, the issues aren't with the Youth Protection policies, they are with the reporting and tracking of violations and responses. I have yet to see anyone come up with any suggested adjustment to the actual YP policies that would be functional. But past that, insurance companies are pretty good at evaluating risk. If they can be assured of the accurate reporting of incidents so that they can quantify the risk of abuse, they'll insure at a reasonable rate. (high, I'm sure, but reasonable relative to the risk) Personally, I think the best possible change they could make to YP would be to create a reporting system that people were confident would be fair and reasonable. If I was considering reporting a minor YP violation, like a Scoutmaster accidentally ending up with only one scout left after a meeting (because they didn't realize scouts number 2 and 3 left at the same time) I would be very concerned about being sure the result was a discussion of how to avoid the situation in the future rather than a reflexive ban on the Scoutmaster or something.

At least in Michigan (I don't know about other states) you only get interest on court awards from either the time of judgement or sometimes from the time of filing, not from the time of the tort occurrence. The only time I've ever heard of getting interest from the time of an occurrence would be in cases of funds being taken for tax debts or something like that.

I agree that it will continue along, in my experience most state legislators just aren't forward thinking enough to actually walk down the paths they create with most of their policy measures to see where they might lead. Instead they usually have to get slapped in the face with a result before they say "Oh... Maybe we shouldn't have done that". What I think we've started seeing thus far is quiet pressure from the professional organs of government urging "wait and see what happens with the current changes before making more". I don't imagine we'll see a full stop or even a recapping of SoL until the first time someone actually sues a School District or State. Personally, (and this is just speculation) I don't actually think that will have a significant impact unless there is a LC with a large number of recent cases or maybe if there are accusations of a particular LC actively pressuring or coercing victims to stay quiet. That advertising spate last year did a pretty good job of publicizing the issue (at least in a general way) so I suspect many folks will now look at further court cases as "old news". I think what's more likely to happen in the case of local suits is condemnation of the COs that had significantly higher than normal numbers of cases. But again, unless I'm mistaken, none of those Catholic church cases involved the judge in question refusing the discharge and dismissing the bankruptcy filing because an agreement couldn't be reached. So how could there have been a precedent set saying "There are no Cram-downs in CSA driven bankruptcies"?

Well, if a tort occurred 40 years ago, it would seem to make sense that you should get an award based upon the value of money at the time of the occurrence. So if a current award for a similar tort today was $100, 40 years ago that may have only been $25. I haven't actually reasoned my way entirely through that whole idea, it was just something that popped into my head to wonder if it would be addressed.