New Sex Abuse Charges

[walk in the woods]

1 hour ago, yknot said:

You can't compare BSA to the teaching profession where teachers and administrators are still allowed to be one on one with students and sometimes even behind closed doors

Sorry but this is absolutely crazy.  If our paid public servants with the full support of local, state, and federal tax dollars, in a government mandated monopoly can't ensure child safety how is an all volunteer organization like BSA held to a higher standard?

[David CO]

26 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

Sorry but this is absolutely crazy.  If our paid public servants with the full support of local, state, and federal tax dollars, in a government mandated monopoly can't ensure child safety how is an all volunteer organization like BSA held to a higher standard?

BSA is not an all volunteer organization.

[yknot]

No matter what we are or how we view ourselves, we have to hold ourselves to a very high standard. Our public trust is at stake. I don't want to read posts that try to equivocate or rationalize this. We need to be perfect. We have put very good systems in place that should help us achieve that and we have decades of mistakes to atone for. 

[ParkMan]

We as Scout leaders hold ourselves to a very high standard.  Just because some people are postualting that it is impossible to completly eliminate child abuse doesn't mean that they condone it or accept it.

@yknot - The goal is very clearly no cases of youth abuse ever.  End of discussion.  No one is suggesting otherwise.  

There was a movie many years ago about the Secret Service - "In the Line of FIre".  One of the primary themes of that movie was that is a person is willing to sacrifice his life to commit a crime, the crime can happen.  Another example is school shootings by youth.  Billions of dollars has been spent to protect schools.  Yet, school shootings still occur.  A really evil person who wants to abuse youth will keep trying and trying until they are able to do so.  Does that mean we shut down all youth activities - no Scouts, youth sports, youth group, band, school, sunday school, youth volunteering, etc...?  No, it means we do the absolute best we can and then try a harder.  But, it most certainly does not mean anyone condones it.  If most certainly does not mean anyone thinks some amount of cases each year is OK.

[mds3d]

2 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

Without much effort , I found more than 5 cases of  child abuse by scouters  in July, 2018 alone. I did not add those who were  being convicted and sentenced in July, 2018.

Russell  "Captain Rick" Ruth , a  longtime local Boy Scouts leader has been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography.

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2018/07/09/boy-scouts-leader-faces-child-porn-charges/768303002/

"they have been advised by law enforcement that there is no evidence of any improprieties happening anywhere within the camp or any Scouting program." A leader with a charge of abuse is not "abuse by a scouter." Literally nothing would have prevented this as he did not seem to have acted while in his capacity with scouts at all.  

Matthew Baker accused of abusing a boy younger than 12 in July 2018 at a Boy Scout camp..  Has abused at least 7 children since 2010.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/ex-cub-scouts-leader-accused-of-sexually-abusing-children-including/article_1d3ef195-a087-55fa-b8fb-d3958d1e3d3f.html

This one is hard to hear, but there aren't clear details on the case related to camp either. 

James Glawson,  former assistant chaplain at a Boy Scout summer camp Yawgoog,  sexual assault on 18yr old with mental disabilities. Other victims have come forward.

https://www.wpri.com/news/local-news/south-county/at-least-4-claim-sex-abuse-at-hands-of-former-boy-scout-volunteer/1833736629

No information on if any of the victims were through scouts. At least a few of theses cases were from the 1980s.

Troop leader Heath Mills was arrested on two counts of solicitation of minor during "Operation Full Armor,"  in South Carolina.

https://www.wistv.com/story/38754271/boy-scouts-call-leader-arrested-in-sc-online-predator-sting-operation-abhorrent-ban-him-from-programs

Gets arrested in a sting, no evidence of any actions taken while being a scout leader. No evidence of any scout victims.  Him being a scouter is just for the purposes of a catchier headline. 

A Boy Scout troop leader  James Roberts, 74,  in Sicklerville ,NJ  has been charged with possessing and distributing child pornography.

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/child-porn-boy-scout-leader-camden-county-arrest-20180702.html

Charges appear to be unrelated to scouting.  No scout victims were identified.  No BSA policy is going to prevent every pervert from becoming a leader. 

"Aqua Joe", A Boy Scout official has been arrested and charged with production of child pornography after allegedly recording scouts while they were changing at  Firelands Scout Reservation . 

https://fox8.com/2018/11/01/boy-scout-official-arrested-charged-with-child-pornography-after-allegedly-recording-children-changing/

What policy would have prevented this in any situation?

Pack leader  James Teddleton accused of sex crimes involving an underage girl.

https://www.14news.com/story/38618913/newburgh-man-arrested-in-missouri-on-sex-crime-charges/

Again this person was a pack leader but his crime was unrelated to scouts.  See previous comments about these kinds of situations. 

Just terrible.

^ My notes in bold above.

We cannot prevent every bad person from joining scouts if that person has not shown how he is bad yet.  You posted 7 articles.  4 were definitely unrelated to scouting, 1 might have been unrelated (no information). The last two are hard to judge what would have been done to prevent it. None display any improper actions by any part of the BSA.

[malraux]

29 minutes ago, mds3d said:

^ My notes in bold above.

We cannot prevent every bad person from joining scouts if that person has not shown how he is bad yet.  You posted 7 articles.  4 were definitely unrelated to scouting, 1 might have been unrelated (no information). The last two are hard to judge what would have been done to prevent it. None display any improper actions by any part of the BSA.

As importantly, the BSA system is well designed to uncover quickly and deal with abuse when it is discovered. Clearly the ideal is to not have abuse happen. But the second best is to make abuse really hard to occur, to detect it when it happen as quickly as possible, and to get cases to law enforcement and out of scouting as fast as possible.

[walk in the woods]

11 hours ago, yknot said:

No matter what we are or how we view ourselves, we have to hold ourselves to a very high standard. Our public trust is at stake. I don't want to read posts that try to equivocate or rationalize this. We need to be perfect. We have put very good systems in place that should help us achieve that and we have decades of mistakes to atone for. 

Two interesting concepts in your statement @yknot

The BSA's public trust is always at stake.  I think we have to separate the public trust of BSA the organization (National, Councils, even Districts to some level) and BSA the local unit, but as my plumber father used to say, s*** rolls downhill. Some would argue BSA the organization lost the public trust 2 decades ago by chasing the Dale case all the way to the SCOTUS.  Others might argue BSA the organization lost the public trust by not standing by that decision.  Both would be largely correct.  The sex abuse charges compound the problem for both groups of "public."  You state our public trust is at risk, I'd argue it's largely been lost already.  The question is can we win it back?  Which brings us to the second section I highlighted.  You use the word atone which is interesting because atonement is a two-step, two-party process.  The party guilty of wrong doing has to repent/repair, the aggrieved party has to forgive.  Without the second part there is no atonement.  I have very limited confidence that BSA the organization will regain the public trust in my lifetime because forgiveness is not part of the public zeitgeist.  So yes, we should do everything possible to avoid harm to the children in our charge, but, have no delusion that it will make a difference in how the BSA is viewed by the public.

[FireStone]

14 hours ago, yknot said:

Frankly, right now, it has to be zero and there is no reason why it shouldn't be. If anyone has a qualm about an SM, an ASM, a unit, they/it should be shut down for review. We have almost zero public confidence.  The days of covering for folks has to be over. Can you not see the headlines? No one will care about statistics. All they will see is that another scout has been abused despite our assurances otherwise. 

The goal is certainly always zero. Without question. But that's a goal. Realistically, I don't see a way to ensure 100% success in stopping abuse from happening.

We hope that all of the measures we put in place make it likely that we would catch a predator before they are able to abuse a scout. YPT shows us what to look for, how to spot grooming and precursors to potentially abuse before it happens. But there is nothing that can be done to ensure that 100% of our membership adheres to 100% of the policies and best practices 100% of the time. We can't track what every adult volunteer is doing 100% of the time, especially outside of official scouting activities.

I would venture a guess that there isn't a unit in the country that is 100% YPT compliant 100% of the time. Mistakes happen. We see things sometimes and say "That was a YTP violation" and we correct it and prevent it from happening again, but it still happens.

I'm a YPT nut, I constantly harp on it in my Pack, probably to a level of annoyance for some folks. But I can't control what everyone else does. I needed a fundraiser form from a scout and called his dad, who said he'd bring it right over (he lives a block away). My doorbell rings and it's the scout, not the dad, standing at my door, alone. Obviously not ok, and I immediately called the dad to tell him that his son was on his way back home and they he could not send his scout to an adult leader's home alone ever again.

So to me, 100% success in stopping abuse across the entire BSA would mean that there are no holes in YPT, 100% compliance in all units. And at the unit level that's just not realistic. I can correct people every time, but in the fall I've got a whole new crop of scouts and parents who, like the dad mentioned above, don't know the rules, forget the rules, or just make a mistake sometimes.

The BSA has done a good job of closing up the gaps in protection. YPT does a lot to make the BSA much safer. We can say "zero" is the goal, but it's not realistic to think we'll ever get to zero. Similarly I'd love to see the BSA get to zero incidents of injury or death during scouting activities, but again, zero incidence of anything just isn't realistic.

[Cburkhardt]

I suggest we stop arguing the "100% Issue".  The argument is what it is.  We do not want to unwittingly provide litigators evidence that can be misrepresented in court.  We have all agreed that 100% compliance is the unquestioned goal we are striving for now and in the future.  Why don't we leave this sub-issue at that?

[qwazse]

16 minutes ago, Cburkhardt said:

I suggest we stop arguing the "100% Issue".  The argument is what it is.  We do not want to unwittingly provide litigators evidence that can be misrepresented in court.  We have all agreed that 100% compliance is the unquestioned goal we are striving for now and in the future.  Why don't we leave this sub-issue at that?

I agree. We need to understand, however, the challenges of 100% compliance in the context of shifting rules.

But, we also need to understand this harsh reality: predators are smart. A scout in a 100% compliant unit could still fall prey to a smart scouter with a deplorable sexual ethic. In the current litigious environment, it seems BSA will bear the financial brunt of that individual's actions -- for decades to come.

[Eagledad]

1 hour ago, walk in the woods said:

Two interesting concepts in your statement @yknot

The BSA's public trust is always at stake.  I think we have to separate the public trust of BSA the organization (National, Councils, even Districts to some level) and BSA the local unit, but as my plumber father used to say, s*** rolls downhill. Some would argue BSA the organization lost the public trust 2 decades ago by chasing the Dale case all the way to the SCOTUS.  Others might argue BSA the organization lost the public trust by not standing by that decision.  Both would be largely correct.  The sex abuse charges compound the problem for both groups of "public." 

This is interesting. 

I'm going to go out on a limb, but none of what you say is valid around here. I understand everything is local, but recently when folks learned of my scouting experience, they have a few quick comments about where the program is going.

Many, if not most, of these folks are parents with young kids. Many are mothers. I have never heard anybody mention the Dale case.  I would be very surprised if any parent of scout age youth today have any recollection of it. I just haven't heard Dale mentioned in several years by anyone. These parents do have recollection of the gay membership change, but it is so over shadowed by the induction of girls, there isn't any discussion about it. There really isn't even much discussion of the girls, except to say the BSA isn't the BSA anymore. Many of them ask me what the BSA is even called today, however, their body language confesses they don't really care. 

Parents who have scouts presently in the program today seem willing to continue with the program, even excited. In fact, they aren't discouraged much, if at all, by the girls. It's the young  parents who haven't got there yet that feel the program is gone as far as their concerned, and imply to me that it's not in their future. Now, of course their minds can be changed depending marketing, but in general, most parents have moved on, and are looking to other programs for their kids future.

When I mention the sex abuse scandal, I'm quite surprised to learn it's not a big deal. The reaction is the same for parents in the program as well as the parents not there yet. When I say it could have dramatic effects to the program, they all shrug their shoulders. The don't care, and the discussion has nowhere to go. I'm perplexed.  

I don't have any explanation for the responses of the abuse scandal. My only guess is that our culture is so inundated with scandals in the media that people are used to waiting out the end to see what is real. I don't know. Weird. 

But, in all these discussions, admitting girls far far outweighs the abuse scandal, or any scandal, for swaying outside general public opinion of the program. I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that the Boy Scouts Of America image is still very powerful with today's young parents. But it is bitter sweet,  they seem to feel betrayed.  

Barry

Edited June 5, 2019 by Eagledad

[malraux]

9 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

I would be very surprised if any parent of scout age youth today have any recollection of it.

I pretty distinctly remember dale, and I have 5 year old cub scout. For early millennials and late gen X, the dale case would have been prominent right at the end of their time in the youth portion of BSA.

[Eagledad]

12 minutes ago, malraux said:

I pretty distinctly remember dale, and I have 5 year old cub scout. For early millennials and late gen X, the dale case would have been prominent right at the end of their time in the youth portion of BSA.

In all my discussions of BSA's ills, Dale is never mentioned by these parents. Do you have a theory, guess? Of course you are also very pro girls in the BSA and that doesn't fit with these parents either. Maybe just local. 

Barry

[malraux]

Just now, Eagledad said:

In all my discussions of BSA's ills, Dale is never mentioned by these parents. Do you have a theory, guess? Of course you are also very pro girls in the BSA and that doesn't fit with these parents either. Maybe just local. 

Barry

I suspect my area is very different in a number of ways, nor do i think that I'm at all the median on a lot of my views.

[Cburkhardt]

To Barry's issue:

I think it depends on the audience that is receiving information on the BSA's YPT and the issues related to Dale.

The parents in our new all-girl Troop have little concern about the Dale issue.  One reason is that they are a full generation removed from those who paid close attention to Dale.  They also understand that large, credible employers, NFPs and other entities have changed their policies on the issues of sexual preference only in the last decade.  Even the Episcopal Church refused to recognize gay marriages as recently as 6 years ago.  So, the fact that the BSA repealed its unenforced "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy four years ago is not really an issue to them.  We have been an "everybody is welcome" Troop from the start and that is all they have experienced. 

For those who are older than about 35 years old, the whipsawing effect of pursuing and then backing-away from Dale continues to have a significant impact on views of the BSA.  I agree that it negatively and significantly impacted our credibility with the pro-Dale right and anti-Dale left age 35 and older.  

Our parents of current Scouts in our Troop are similarly not as concerned about YPT issues as you would think -- but that is simply because they are observing a Troop that just started and is very-openly following best YPT practices.  Our CO and the parents regularly marvel at how well we implement the practices and how far ahead we are in comparison to schools and churches.  WE do it directly and openly -- the only way, in my view. 

For the press and over-35s who are either quite conservative or liberal , the BSA has probably permanently lost its once-pristine reputation. 

The result is that we should be able to appeal to the current and future generations of parents (and their children) who, for the most part, overwhelmingly approve of the membership standards changes and can evaluate the BSA for how it is following YPT now.  Our membership can grow significantly (or at least replace LDS departures) a result.  

But the current 35-to-65 year-old leaders of press, government, NFP and business America formed views of the BSA during the BSA's 25 years as a cultural punching bag -- and seemingly refuse to credit the BSA for getting its act together on youth protection.  They are continually arguing pro- or anti-BSA views based on political and cultural viewpoints and sometimes an overly-rosy view about what the BSA might have been at an earlier time.  That age group is now "in charge" of the levers of power and has become so divided by cultural and political views that the stability of our country has been impacted.  This includes people who write intemperate things in all-capitol letters on blogs about our adding girls, Dale and and the lawsuits.

The BSA is big and familiar enough that our future prospects are a rough proxy for American society.  That people argue vigorously about us means what we are doing is important.  If we concentrate on appealing to our user-families and distance ourselves from the culture wars we will be better off.