14 DAY TRIAL // Records of scoutmasters and adult volunteers abusing children in the Boy Scouts have been made public, following a ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court.
1247 cases of child abuse have been revealed so far. Attorneys Paul Mones and Kelly Clark called an audit of the Boy Scout organization by the Congress, to make sure they were protecting children against potential abusers, most found amongst their supervisors.
The case was brought to court after a jury ruled that the Scouts displayed negligence in hiring a Scoutmaster that ended up confessing to 17 counts of child molestation, NBC News reports.
“What we can read through the files, for us it represents the pain and the anguish of thousands of untold Scouts. [...] While there are 1,247 files, we know that each Scout leader (accused of molestation) molested on the average more than one Scout,” Clark stated.
Two cases stood out, in which it is evident that Scout supervisors were letting incidents of child abuse slide, in order to keep up with public appearances.
A Scoutmaster in Pennsylvania was forced to resign in 1972, after admitting to acts of “perversion” involving the children he was supposed to keep safe.
In 1976, he was allowed to reapply for the position and put in charge of a different troop. The Scout executive that handled his case wrote that:
"If it is acceptable with you, I would like to let this case drop. [He] is undergoing professional treatment in an effort to stabilize his emotional stability. He recognizes that he has had a problem and he is personally taking steps to resolve this situation. The community involved is rather unique and one father has threatened legal action which could only injure the Boy Scouts of America. Therefore, I would suggest that we let it drop. My personal opinion in this particular case is, ‘if it don't stink, don't stir it.’"
A Cub Scout leader in Alaska was actually caught in the act of sleeping, naked, next to little boys, while on a camping trip. Organization execs stated, in internal correspondence, that there wasn't enough proof of abuse in the man's case, in 1981.
“I will agree that sleeping nude and showing boys pornographic books indicated very poor judgment in dealing with Cub Scouts. [...] I do not know, however, that this is a serious enough offense to refuse registration anywhere he might try to register unless there are more instances,” they responded.