BSA fails to report abuser - LA Times, CBC

[RememberSchiff]

Scouts Canada CEO Janet Yale leaves organization

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/11/21/scouts-canada-janet-yale.html(This message has been edited by RememberSchiff)

[Engineer61]

Beav wrote :

 

"In da case of the Arizona statute, the part yeh left out matters a lot, eh? It reads "For the purposes of this subsection, "person" means 1. Any physician, physician's assistant, optometrist, dentist, osteopath, chiropractor, podiatrist, behavioral health professional, nurse, psychologist, counselor or social worker who develops the reasonable belief in the course of treating a patient; 2. Any peace officer, member of the clergy, priest or christian science practitioner; 3. The parent, stepparent or guardian of the minor; 4. School personnel or domestic violence victim advocate who develop the reasonable belief in the course of their employment." (ARS 13-3620A)"

 

Looks like you needed to scroll one more line eh Beav? I guess you missed #5 ...

 

5. Any other person who has responsibility for the care or treatment of the minor.

 

 

 

[RememberSchiff]

Steve Kent, chairman of the governing board of Scouts Canada, has apologized to victims of sexual abuse in the organization and announced an independent review of confidential files .

 

Scouts Canada CEO Janet Yale denied that confidential records were kept. She resigned abruptly in November after the CBC published proof of their existence.

 

So far, the BSA has not allowed an independent review of their perversion files.

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/08/local/la-me-1209-scouts-20111209(This message has been edited by RememberSchiff)

[BartHumphries]

I don't see a problem with how Scouts Canada followed things.

 

Apparently, they turned over all relevant information to the police or social services as they were supposed to. Kudos to them!

 

They also kept a confidential list that blackballed people from coming back to the organization. Well, every big company has one of those, doesn't it? I mean, at every big company I've ever worked for, if you did something crazy like that guy in the Office Space movie who burned down the building because people kept taking his stapler, or if it turned out that you were molesting kids or whatever, you are never going to get hired back to work at that company again. It's just bad public policy to talk about it and of course (as someone pointed out in the comments for the Scouts Canada article) there are privacy concerns that stop the organization from making the contents of the list public.

 

I really don't see how it's a big deal. It's not like the decades-old Catholic church or Los Angeles BSA Council who kept confidential records and didn't report it to the police or anyone -- Scouts Canada reported it properly, so I really don't see what the big deal is.

[Engineer61]

"I really don't see how it's a big deal. It's not like the decades-old Catholic church or Los Angeles BSA Council who kept confidential records and didn't report it to the police or anyone -- Scouts Canada reported it properly, so I really don't see what the big deal is. "

 

Uh....these files have been accumulating in BSA HQ since the 50's and 60's.

 

I just got a copy of the book "On My Honor". These problems in Scouting date back to on of Baden Powell's friends ...

 

As long as there's Scouting, there's going to be pedophiles in Scouting. Especially in the LDS troops. I have some hope that the sexual abuse education programs going on in the schools will educate the kids in Scouting enough to start blowing the whistle.

 

Does Scouting give any educational guidance in abuse issues to either the Scouts or the Parents?

[Eagle92]

ENG,

 

Check out a new copy of the various handbooks, as your son may have torn it out. Each handbook has an age appropriate discussion booklet that parents are suppose to review with their kids. It's designed to come out of the HB.

 

Also BSA does have a video entitled A TIME TO TELL. It's old now, but effective.

[skeptic]

"Does Scouting give any educational guidance in abuse issues to either the Scouts or the Parents?"

 

Not sure how anyone could have been on these forums for more than a year, and who supposedly is involved in the program, could even ask this question.

 

[skeptic]

Moderators; please consider moving this to its appropriate forum. It really should be in the Politics and Issues.

[perdidochas]

eng61,

 

First, each of the handbooks from Tiger Cub to Boy Scouts has a parents guide to recognizing abuse, etc., and things for parents to talk about with their children.

 

Second, some Troops actually teach this. Our troop brings in the Council expert on youth protection to talk to the boys about it.

[BartHumphries]

"Especially in the LDS troops"? Say what? I haven't seen any newspaper articles that talked about pedophiles in the Boy Scouts which said that it was in an LDS troop. Actually, I haven't ever seen any mention of a charter organization, the newspaper articles just mention Boy Scouts.

[Engineer61]

I believe if you look at the Oregon case, is was centered around LDS troops, which is why the LDS was named as a plaintiff.

[Beavah]

Yah, BartHumphries, in this case Eng61 is right in that some of da high-profile abuse cases (Oregon, Idaho, etc.) have been in LDS units, and da actions by LDS officials followed what was common at the time (and similar to the Catholics and others). That is to say, they honored family wishes and believed they were protecting the kids from lurid exposure and more emotional duress by hushing things up and either just movin' the perp out of the program or, in some cases, tryin' to minister to him spiritually.

 

In 20-20 hindsight, that was an awfully unsuccessful approach. Emphasis on awful. But it was common back then for all types of sex crimes, not just crimes against children. Date rape was often handled similarly. And to be fair, there's a rationale for it, because prosecutin' these creeps back then didn't have the same sort of protections for kids at trial, and person charged has a right to confront his accuser.

 

I don't reckon da incidence of this stuff was any higher in LDS, any more than it's higher in Catholics than us Protestant folk, or higher in Scouting than in sports or schools. In fact, I think when yeh run da stats the incidence is less in some of these big organizations than in da neighborhood swimming pools or roller rinks. It's just when you're seen as one big centralized organization like da BSA, LDS, or Catholics, it seems worse because there are more cases and there's a sense that da Big Institution should have "done something." Da schools and smaller institutions passed the perps along in exactly the same way, except they passed 'em on to other institutions. It diffuses responsibility.

 

Beavah

 

[RememberSchiff]

KPMG, an outside business consulting and auditing company, has started reviewing Scouts Canada records of suspected or alleged sex abuse, totalling about 350 cases since the 1940s. A public report is expected in early 2012.

 

Steve Kent, the youth organization's chief commissioner, "said that the organization is willing to lift controversial confidentiality clauses contained in some of its out-of-court settlements with child sex-abuse victims.

 

Scouts Canada has been criticized for including conditions that barred victims from revealing the existence of settlements in many cases but went as far as to forbid any mention of the abuse. Some victims felt muzzled and confused by the agreements.

 

However, Kent noted that factors such as the privacy of third parties may affect decisions about whether to fully lift confidentiality clause conditions. He encouraged victims to contact Scouts Canada to discuss their agreements.

 

"We don't want to prevent any of those people from telling their stories, if that's helpful in their healing, if they believe that that can help others then we want to do what we can to enable that," said Kent."

 

http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/news/story/2011/12/09/scouts-.html

[RememberSchiff]

"(Scouts Canada) Chief Commissioner Steve Kent said a third-party (KPMG) review of records relating to abuse has turned up a number of cases in which it is unclear if police were notified. He said those cases are now being referred to authorities."

 

(Scouts Canada is now voluntarily turning over their files which a year ago supposedly did not exist!)

 

Im ashamed these things happened in our organization ... but Im definitely concerned and as motivated as anyone to do things right at this point, Chief Commissioner Steve Kent said Friday.

 

The public release of KPMG's review has been pushed back to late 2012.

 

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1133420--scouts-canada-some-allegations-of-sex-abuse-may-not-have-been-reported-to-police

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/scouts-canada-says-some-allegations-of-sex-abuse-may-not-have-been-reported-to-police/2012/02/17/gIQAKIQPKR_story.html(This message has been edited by RememberSchiff)