fred8033 Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 14 minutes ago, PeterHopkins said: Here's what I think it would take for CynicalScouter to begin to believe the BSA is taking youth protection seriously: Each council should have a web page that is easily linked from its home page. Number of reports xx Number of reports referred to law enforcement xx Cases referred to law enforcement that resulted in prosecution yy Cases prosecuted that resulted in conviction zz Cases prosecuted that resulted in acquittal aa Cases prosecuted that are still pending bb Cases referred to law enforcement in prior years that resulted in conviction during 2020 cc Cases referred to law enforcement in prior years that resulted in acquittal during 2020 dd Reports during 2020 with accusations of rape ee Reports during 2020 with accusations of other felonies ff Reports during 2020 with accusations of misdemeanors gg Yeah. Umm ... Can you provide a parallel example from other youth serving organizations? So BSA is hiding? ... show me youth serving organizations that are posting those numbers on their home page? Big Brothers and Big Sister has been used as an example. Send me their page doing this as an example. Or Newart, NY YMCA page showing the numbers. ??? ... or ... ??? This is not about YPT. This is about punishment and shaming and humiliation. This is an attempt to kill a program. Perhaps Ford dealership should list number of highway deaths and injuries. Heck, they made the Pinto. They negligently killed thousands and hid the facts. They should be humiliated further for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fred8033 Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 10 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said: BSA is in hide mode. Just wrong. Wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CynicalScouter Posted October 4, 2021 Author Share Posted October 4, 2021 (edited) 15 minutes ago, fred8033 said: TCC statements sound like self-hype to misdirect away from the negligent revictimization of promising huge settlements. TCC never did that. You are mistaking them for the Coalition. TCC never promised huge settlements. They simply promised to do what the are legally required to do as appointees of the U.S. Trustee: maximize benefits for all similarly situated (read: child sexual abuse) claimants. Edited October 4, 2021 by CynicalScouter 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CynicalScouter Posted October 4, 2021 Author Share Posted October 4, 2021 3 minutes ago, fred8033 said: show me youth serving organizations that are posting those numbers on their home page? Show me a youth serving organization with tens of thousands of victims. Catholic Church? Yep, and they put it in an annual report. USA Gymnastics? They have agreed to do so as part of their bankruptcy. BSA? No way, fighting it tooth and claw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CynicalScouter Posted October 4, 2021 Author Share Posted October 4, 2021 (edited) 6 minutes ago, fred8033 said: Heck, they made the Pinto. They negligently killed thousands and hid the facts. They should be humiliated further for it. Let's take that example. I am not asking for BSA to release HISTORICAL data, Pinto-era data But if BSA really, really is taking sexual abuse in scouting seriously NOW, prove it. Show us the data for NOW (or this year and the last few, Catholic Church is 5, I think USA Gymnastics is 3) BSA shouldn't have to be ordered by the court to do so. Edited October 4, 2021 by CynicalScouter 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CynicalScouter Posted October 4, 2021 Author Share Posted October 4, 2021 (edited) 7 minutes ago, fred8033 said: Just wrong. Wrong. Who is the BSA board? Who is in charge of YP for BSA? Either paid professional, volunteer committee members, or both. I'll take any. How many occurrences/how prevalent is child sexual abuse in scouting today? Hiding. Hiding. Hiding. Edited October 4, 2021 by CynicalScouter 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RememberSchiff Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 32 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said: Who is in charge of YP for BSA? Either paid professional, volunteer committee members, or both. I'll take any. Michael Johnson, Director Youth Protection Boy Scouts of America National Office Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CynicalScouter Posted October 4, 2021 Author Share Posted October 4, 2021 (edited) 1 minute ago, RememberSchiff said: Michael Johnson, Director Youth Protection Boy Scouts of America National Office Left 6 months ago. Edited October 4, 2021 by CynicalScouter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RememberSchiff Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 1 minute ago, CynicalScouter said: Left 2 years ago. Sorry about that. Guess I will have to dig further. From August, 2019 https://scoutingwire.org/how-the-boy-scouts-of-america-keeps-kids-safe-today/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CynicalScouter Posted October 4, 2021 Author Share Posted October 4, 2021 Just now, RememberSchiff said: Sorry about that. Guess I will have to dig further. From August, 2019 I got his out-of-office-I-no-longer-work-here message in February 2021. I was told he left even earlier than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterHopkins Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 31 minutes ago, fred8033 said: Yeah. Umm ... Can you provide a parallel example from other youth serving organizations? First, my post was primarily an attempt to intervene in the communication problem @CynicalScouter and @HelpfulTracks seemed to be having. They both appear to be of good intentions in my view, and I didn't like seeing CynicalScouter's message get lost. The solution I described was my impression of CynicalScouter's wishes, not a creation of my own. I'm not convinced the BSA needs that level of pubic disclosure, but it certainly needs some. That being said, no other youth-serving organization has yet been identified to have this problem to the level the BSA has. We may someday find that this issue is far more prevalent in other organizations. While I think the BSA has separated itself from other youth-serving organizations (in a bad way), I don't think it is fair to compare what happened in the BSA to the way many Catholic dioceses dealt with child sexual abuse. They actively enabled it by reassigning priests to other parishes, where they could have a fresh start... and find new victims. I haven't yet heard of a case where the BSA thought the best response to an allegation of abuse was to simply move the Scouter to another troop. Perhaps it happened, but I haven't seen or heard it. What i do know is that the BSA has lost some of the trust and confidence of the general public that it once had. Without that, the movement is rendered incapable of accomplishing its Mission. The best way I know to address that is transparency. I just don't know how much detail is useful to parents in making a decision to sign up their children for Scouting, Transparency will help restore the public's trust and confidence. The BSA should act like and appear to be a leader in youth protection, particularly given its past problems. That cannot happen by remaining opaque. If you hide what is happening, how can anyone tell the extent of the problem or that you are doing something about it? I don't think parents expect there to be zero risk in activities in which their children engage. Tragic accidents can occur during any physical activity. Sexual predators can be highly skilled at masking their intentions and carrying out their crimes stealthily. But my hope is that a web page that discloses the number of youth each council serves and the number of reports of abuse it received will appear negligible to parents, and they will judge the risk to be acceptable. Perhaps some qualitative analysis would be useful as well. For instance, of the total reports received, what youth protection guidelines were violated that provided the opportunity for abuse? This would allow the guidelines to be improved. Emergence from bankruptcy should not result in a static set of rules imposed by the court. Rather, there needs to be continuous, ongoing improvement to the framework. Identifying weaknesses in the guidelines is needed to make that happen. After all, the abusers do that. Shouldn't the BSA do it as well? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RememberSchiff Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 11 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said: I got his out-of-office-I-no-longer-work-here message in February 2021. I was told he left even earlier than that. Hmm, no mention of him or a Director of Youth Protection in 2019 BSA Form 990. https://paddockpost.com/2021/08/25/executive-compensation-at-boy-scouts-of-america/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterHopkins Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 I have a question for the lawyers in the room. Is it possible for the BSA (or any youth-serving organization) to have youth protection rules so robust that they could successfully defend an action in a state court? To be clear, I am not saying that is an appropriate response to a victim. What I'd like to know is whether a youth-serving organization as a respondent in civil litigation could be held not liable, because the plaintiff is unable to show the organization was negligent, because the organization did everything it could have done to prevent the abuse. I expect the answer may vary from state to state. I'd just like some opinions of how this might play out in the states in which lawyers on this thread practice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CynicalScouter Posted October 4, 2021 Author Share Posted October 4, 2021 46 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said: Who is in charge of YP for BSA? Either paid professional, volunteer committee members, or both. I'll take any. By the way, to prove my point, lets look at other organizations that have had massive child sexual abuse scandals, shall we? Catholic Church: Full committee plus listing of professional staff for Bishops' Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People https://www.usccb.org/committees/protection-children-young-people/committee USA Gymnastics: Shelba Waldron, Director of Safe Sport Education and Policy at USA Gymnastics. https://usagym.org/pages/post.html?PostID=22770 and since they also use the U.S. Center for Safe Sport as their outside auditor/monitor https://uscenterforsafesport.org/about/senior-leadership-team/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CynicalScouter Posted October 4, 2021 Author Share Posted October 4, 2021 1 minute ago, RememberSchiff said: Hmm, no mention of him or a Director of Youth Protection in 2019 BSA Form 990. https://paddockpost.com/2021/08/25/executive-compensation-at-boy-scouts-of-america/ That doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't there. The IRS 990 only requires reporting the highest paid employees and staff. His salary may have been below the reporting threshold. But the fact that you and I, relatively savvy scouters, cannot even figure this out speaks volumes, no? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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