UNITED STATES
USA Today
Over a 20-year period, the Boy Scouts of America failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and even helped many to cover their tracks, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The newspaper says its extensive review of 1,600 confidential “perversion files” from 1970 to 1991 found that BSA officials frequently allowed suspected molesters to leave the organization for bogus reasons like business demands or “chronic brain dysfunction.”
Times reporters Kim Christensen and Jason Felch write that while the Boy Scouts has kept a blacklist of alleged molesters since 1919, it often didn’t work, as men would slip back into the program and face new accusations.
The newspaper, which broke earlier aspects of the story in August, examined more than 500 cases in which the Scouts had heard of alleged abuse through tips from parents or staff members.
DOCUMENTS: A paper trail of abuse
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