Perversion files released

[Twocubdad]

And in that situation, E, I'd say shame on the Scout Executive for letting the little twit cost us a good volunteer. When some of us say we fear this situation turning into a witch hunt, THAT is what we are talking about.

[DeanRx]

TwoCub...

 

It is already a witch hunt !!!

 

That poor volunteer. Bet she wishes she would have taken a couple more seconds to take a 2nd leader with her to go looking for the lad.

 

The rules of the road nowadays is - don't EVER allow yourself to get into a position for someone to make a claim. Buddy system works for leaders too...

 

Dean

[AZMike]

Re the family vs strangers issue...No, guys. Family members are more likely to abuse, based on the data.

 

Out of 715,761 cases of abuse (physical and sexual) and neglect of children reported to Child Protective Service (CPS) agencies in each state in 2010 (last year provided), the offenders were broken down as follows (per the annual survey by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services):

 

Child Daycare Providers: 3,685 (0.4%)

Friend and Neighbor: 3,157 (0.4%)

Group Home Staff: 1,671 (0.2%)

Professional 1,037 (0.1%)

 

Parent: 715,761 (81.2%)

Foster Parent: 3,083 (0.3%)

Legal Guardian: 2,136 (0.2%)

Other Relative: 53,851 (6.1%)

Unmarried Partner of Parent: 38,905 (4.4%)

 

The rates of sexual abuse are hard to estimate, based on differing legal definitions of "abuse."

 

(This message has been edited by AZMike)

[Eagle92]

Dean and 2Cub,

 

SE was following national policy, and had no choice but to remove. And yes it did cost us an outstanding volunteer, as well as a future one: her son. The problem is this, in today's environment if she was to remain, we would get into all kinds of criticism.

 

And I admit I am torn in this situation. I know the scout is a liar, heck he lied about me giving him permission to go off site after hours at a national event and thankfully I had 2 other adults with me and he had 3 scouts with him to state otherwise, but in the absence of evidence what are we to do? If we keep accused leaders without evidence of innocence we lose, and if we remove leaders without evidence of guilt we lose.

 

In my opinion the safety of the youth is the #1 priority, hence I would remove the leader in the above situation.

 

Thankfully the son stayed in long enough to get his Eagle, which was only a few months after the situation occurred. She was able to attend the council banquet as a parent. But I was told it got interesting when they asked for all the past Silver Beaver recipients to stand, be recognized, and to show the audience the quality of the Silver Beaver recipients, and she stood up.

 

An aside: I know of one troop that will not allow female leaders to attend camp outs unless two of them are going. I do not know their reasoning, whether they are misinterpreting YP rules or it's a CO rule, but I bet it's to prevent something like this form happening.

[Horizon]

Another thing bothering me about the release of the files is the revelation of the identities of those abused. One article in the LA Times had a man who had never told his wife or children about this incident until a reporter called him.

 

The abuse of privacy of the victims in the release really bothers me.

[Eagle732]

Interesting article here on on of the released "perversion files".

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/blog/bs-md-bauman-boyscout-file-20121022,0,7849318.story

 

Bob Bauman, a congressman from Maryland was charged with having sex with a 16 y.o. male congressional page which got him on the list. Bauman is admittedly gay. I remember when this went down but not any mention of BSA at the time.

 

Interesting that when interviewed Bauman was surprised he was on the list and said he didn't blame BSA for being "overly cautious".

 

 

[WasE61]

No, Mike, the sexual abuse numbers (which is specifically what we are talking about) were quite clear... I'll go find them again.

[Beavah]

Nah, WasE61, they aren't that clear when yeh dig a bit, because a big chunk of da sexual assault on minors numbers are committed by other minors, eh? Those all fall in da "non-parent" category. Once yeh subtract 'em out, the number of non-parent adults committin' sexual assault is much lower. It might still work out slightly da way yeh suggest, especially because parents tend to abuse girls at a higher rate than boys when compared with more general perpetrators (which might lead one to question da comparative risk of gay males, or just reflect that guys like Sandusky go after kids other than their own).

 

Still, I'm not sure that we want to call (non-sexual) abuse by a parent an OK thing or a lesser thing, especially when it is far more common and leads to at least as much in long term emotional problems as sexual abuse by a stranger. Plus fatalities. Seems to me we should be every bit as willing to protect kids from that as from sexual abuse, eh? So in da grand scheme of things, parents are da worst risk for da welfare of children in this way, which is why CPS agencies and mandatory reportin' were originally put in place.

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[BadenP]

Eagle92

 

I could not disagree with you more in this particular case. The woman was investigated and found innocent and the kid was found to be a habitual liar, in what universe is that just cause to revoke her membership? These facts were known and there would be no backlash as you claim. Yet the SE showed POOR judgement and no common sense in his decision which is why SE's should not be the ones making these decisions in the first place, they are not trained law enforcement or are they lawyers. The BSA is in the mess they are now because they felt they could keep it all in house in dealing with these situations, and much like the Catholic Church have lost all credibility in dealing with these kind of situations now and in the future.

[Horizon]

My spouse is a university researcher, and is spending time today in a 4 hour meeting on how to ensure that children are protected in research settings. Their department works with kids in various settings with grad students and faculty and in response to everything that is going on - they will probably have to change their operations again. They already record all sessions, but I can see some variation of 2-deep being put into play in the university setting.

[Tampa Turtle]

"Perversion Files"! Why my Council just referred to them as the "Prevention Files".

 

No problem here, keep moving, keep moving.

[Mr. Boyce]

I got back into scouting because my wife said it was a good program that needed good men.

 

I guess in all this, I'm left scratching my head and wondering "what percentage of the general population is pedophile?"

 

Anyone know?

[AZMike]

The person most likely to sexually abuse your child is.. your child. That is, a sibling. That factors in to the "family" statistics. Not just parents. You also need to include the odd "family" members in modern society, which include mom (or dad's) live-in boyfriend.

 

As Beavah suggested, how do you quantify one type of abuse (sexual contact) as bad but not include physical abuse (not to mention emotional abuse) which often has a sexual component. If someone burns their child because they receive pleasure from the act, how is that different from someone who sodomizes their child because they receive pleasure from the act? Both acts, since they are done to relieve stressors and cause pleasure for the offender, are sexual in the criminal sense of the term. Not all sex crimes involve sodomy, fellatio, or inappropriate touching, for child or adult victims.

 

Which leads us to a more relevant question - many Scouters (most, or all, I would hope) would report another scouter if there was evidence of sexual abuse. How many would report a parent if they saw evidence of non-sexual abuse - repeated instances burns, bruises, emotional symptoms, fear of returning home after a campout, etc.? You know what you should do, and what you morally should do - how many actually would?

[eagle90]

Years ago I did report a case to the SE when a scout had bruises up and down his back and sides. When asked, he aid his dad did that as punishment for breaking curfew. I did report it to the SE who later informed me that the school where the scout attended already had a file on the situation and was taking it up with the authorities. Don't know what the eventual outcome was.

 

Dale

[The Blancmange]

Eagle92 wrote:

 

>>>> SE was following national policy, and had no choice but to remove.