The Boy Scouts of America plan to begin doing what critics argue they should have done decades ago â€" bring suspected abusers named in the organization's so-called perversion files to the attention of police departments and sheriff's offices across the country.
The Scouts have, until now, argued they did all they could to prevent sex abuse within their ranks by spending a century tracking pedophiles and using those records to keep known sex offenders out of their organization. But a court-ordered release of the perversion files from 1965 to 1985, expected sometime in October, has prompted Scouts spokesman Deron Smith to say the organization will go back into the files and report any offenders who may have fallen through the cracks.
Smith said Mike Johnson, the group's youth protection director and a former police detective, will lead the review.
That could prompt a new round of criminal prosecutions for offenders who have so far escaped justice, said Clatsop County, Ore., District Attorney Josh Marquis. But investigations may require more than what most Scout files provide, including victims willing to cooperate.
"Let's even assume the suspect confessed," he said. "An uncorroborated confession is not sufficient for a conviction."
AP
FILE - This April 8, 2010 file photo shows Kelly Clark, attorney for the Portland man who filed a sex abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America, using a chart during his closing statements in the Multnomah County Courthouse in Portland, Ore. The Boy Scouts of America plan to begin doing what critics argue they should have done decades ago _ bring suspected abusers named in the organization’s so-called perversion files to the attention of police departments and sheriff’s offices across the country. (AP Photo/The Oregonian, Brent Wojahn, Pool, File)
Close Many states have no statutes of limitations for children victimized when they were younger than 16, so even decades-old crimes could be fair game.
The Scouts began keeping the files shortly after their creation in 1910, when pedophilia was largely a crime dealt with privately â€"not publicly. The organization argues that the files helped them track offenders and protect children. But some of the files released in 1991, detailing cases from 1971 to 1991, showed repeated instances of Scouts leaders failing to disclose sex abuse to authorities, even when they had a confession.
A lawsuit culminated in April 2010 with the jury ruling the BSA had failed to protect the plaintiff from a pedophile assistant Scoutmaster in the 1980s, even though that man had previously admitted molesting Scouts. The jury awarded $20 million to the plaintiff.
Files kept before 1971 remained secret, until a judge ruled â€" and the Oregon Supreme Court agreed â€" that they should be released. Attorneys are now redacting the addresses and other identifying material from the files, which stretch from 1965 to 1985.
The release means that alleged abusers, and the names of Scout leaders who failed to report them, will be made public soon in tens of thousands of pages of confidential documents —— one of the largest troves of the files the BSA has ever been forced to produce. A psychiatrist who reviewed the files, Dr. Jennifer Warren, found that police were involved in about two-thirds of the cases from 1965-1985.
Kelly Clark, a Portland attorney who won a landmark 2010 lawsuit against the Boy Scouts, says the documents show that even though the Scouts have been collecting the files nearly since the Boy Scouts' founding in 1910, the organization failed to use them to protect boys from pedophiles.
"What's significant is that the Boy Scouts could have these files for so long and not learn from them," Clark said.
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