Talk:Scouting sex abuse cases/Archive 1

Archive 1

World view

Given the assertion this is a problem in the whole movement, why is the article fixated on the BSA? Almost every single example discussed is from the BSA. This article is also only listed in BSA related articles. Why not Scout associations from other countries? Cases from other countries, and girl scout associations as well, should be discussed to give it proper focus, that this is a worldwide problem, not just a BSA one. In its current state, this article comes off like a tirade against the BSA and implies this is not a problem elsewhere. Rlevse 11:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Review

A quick review. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:12, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

• General:
  • As noted, the title implies a world-wide scope, but the body is BSA specific except for a few minor statements.
  • With a title of Scouting sex abuse cases, I would have expected to see some specific cases; instead we have generalities.
  • There is no context. How does the BSA relate to other organizations, how does it relate to American society? If this is a world-wide article then it needs a world-wide context. For example, how does the BSA compare to schools or churches? Simply throwing links into See also does not work.
  • Scout, Scouting and Chief Scout Executive should be capitalized, except where quoted. See the Language of Scouting.

• Lead-in:
  • The lead-in does not summarize the article.

• Extent:
  • The section starts of with the B-P statement; with no assertion that he was ever involved in sex abuse, this appears to have no relevance.
  • The section is mainly quotes that aren't tied together to properly make the point. I would expect this section to show the extent of the issues.
  • The last statement is tautological.

• Methods of seduction:
  • The title reads like a how-to section.
  • These "methods" are quite incomplete- they simply do not cover all of the elements required for abuse to happen.

• Boys Scouts of America: history of concealment
  • Again, there is no context. For example, at the time the BSA was making "deals" with abusers, weren't most other organizations doing the same?

• Washington Times investigation
  • These articles appear to have used data from 1986 and earlier, and this article seems to based on that. What has happened in the last twenty years?

• Responses
  • Basically just a link to Youth Protection program (Boy Scouts of America)? That article is still basically a stub, so there is no meat to this section.

• References:
  • The references to The Washington Times do not cite the article title or author. One might think they were simply culled from the book Scout's Honor. --Gadget850 ( Ed)
  • Although noted, Scout's Honor oddly enough is not used as a reference.
  • References need to use the cite.php method and a template. See Tutorial: How to use footnotes for further information.

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Scouting sex abuse cases → Sexual abuse of children in the Boy Scouts of America — Article scope is limited to the Boy Scouts of America. May be controversial. jergen 11:57, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~. Since this is not a vote, please explain the reasons for your recommendation.

• Oppose rather than moving and kept a narrow focus, this article should be expanded to cover all of Scouting as the issue of abuse is not BSA-specific. Rlevse 12:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
• Support Moving Apparently the US Scouting people think this is an issue worthy of an wikipedia article. Then it should be expressed in the title that this is a BSA only subject. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 11:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC).
  • You're saying this only happens in America? Hardly.Rlevse 20:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm saying this is only a serious topic in America. Definitely. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:08, 7 May 2007 (UTC).
      • hardly.Rlevse 22:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)...If you're saying only Americans seem to want to keep the article, maybe, but if you're saying the problem doesn't exist or is minimal in other countries, no way. Just look at the Catholic Church problem, worldwide.Rlevse 23:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments:

• In my humble opinion that article should be deleted altogether. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 11:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved.

First reply to review

Many of the points raised are answered by the research material published by the Washington Times, which I have now added to the page as an external link. For completeness, the 5-part series of Washington Times articles on scouting and child sex abuse is online at [[1]] (warning: the articles total over 35,000 words, so this is a big file, 70 pages of text in fact)Testbed 09:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC)Testbed

Essay tag

I added the essay tag to this article, as I felt that having sections titled things such as "Methods of seduction", and "Boys Scouts of America: history of concealment" sounded more akin to an essay or a scaremongering Tonight with Trevor McDonald investigation, in written format. Oh, and in response to a point raised in the move request above:

• "if you're saying the problem doesn't exist or is minimal in other countries, no way. Just look at the Catholic Church problem, worldwide."

That is true, but it is also nothing to do with the Boy Scouts. --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 14:44, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Cases after the 1980s

If you search for abuse within scouting in English-language newspapers, you are immediately confronted with 100s of cases which postdate both "Scouts Honor" and the BSA scouts Youth Protection program. Despite some assertions by other editors the issue is not one of needing to prove that things continued after the YPp was set up; the problem is rather how best to summarise all the very many cases which make the point.

To this uninvolved outsider (to declare my non-interest I have never been a scout nor have any of my children been scouts/guides, but then neither have I been molested by a paedophile either) a balanced judgement seems clear enough: there were problems, steps were taken to improve matters, things have got better but problems continue, nonetheless some relatively uninformed and/or defensive folk want to present an unrealistic picture of scouting. However I assume that someone will eventually turn up who is motivated to render the mass of secondary source newspaper information which postdates "Scouts Honor" into an appropriately encyclopaedic form for this page (I notice that e.g. on Catholic church sex abuse pages there is what seems to me to be a slightly unhinged tendency to detail case after case, but this is not the place to debate that editing issue).

In the meantime, just to illustrate the scale of the problem (and provide some references for those who continue to run the slightly odd argument that only one case can be found since the 1980s) here are two summary examples from newspapers within the last week (these are not particularly good illustrations, just two very recent ones out of 100s):-

The Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA.)

June 19, 2007: A former Girl Scout camp counselor from Mountain Center has been convicted on federal charges of possessing child pornography and traveling to New Mexico to have sex with the 7-year-old son of longtime friends.

Bay City Times (Michigan)

June 13, 2007: Judge orders Boy Scout leader to face seven counts of child abuse

Testbed 06:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Testbed

Sadly, the problem will never totally go away, just as other crimes will never totally go away. You really need to address this as an international issue, this article and most of your edits focus on the BSA and it's hardly an America or boys only problem. It gives an unbalanced view of things. See WP:SOAP and Gadget850's response on the BSA talk page. Rlevse 09:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a bit of a logic slip in that last comment from Rlevse:

(1) several (I think two) editors seemed to want to reedit the page to imply that no (or no more than one) problem existed within the BSA after their Youth Protection program had been started

(2) so I provided verification that many US cases postdate that program, no big deal I would have thought but some people wanted to argue this point

(3) as well as show that there are many 100s of cases within the English-speaking world (i.e. beyond the BSA) as a start towards an "international" view

(4) yet you now say I "really need to address this as an international issue"

(5) so I refer you back to my earliest comments on this subject, which, as I am from England not the US, refer to UK cases (which I seem to remember led to my being accused of knowing nothing about the US and hence my going to look at what US newspapers had published - this feels a little circular)

(6) no doubt people who speak languages other than English can and will provide examples from newspaper reports in still other countries (when I have time I'll have a go with the German newspapers, as I read German)

(7) however in any case many of the Washington Times interviews with experts relate to behaviour, rather than local/national questions within the BSA / United States, and so can stand for scouting internationally

(8) btw Gadget850 commented on material added to the BSA page by others, not me.

Hope that helps clarify what I posted earlier.

Testbed 10:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Testbed

the logic slip is yours on the international stuff, but yes the edits were someone else. Sorry on that one.Rlevse 11:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

As someone seems (for whatever reason) to persist in (mis)reading the evidence and claiming it is sensible to write that there has been only one case of sex abuse in scouting (internationally? in the BSA? I'm getting a little confused what exactly I am supposed to be presenting evidence for here) since the Youth Protection program, here is some further reading on the subject. I have just done a quick (international) newspaper search, for articles written in English which include "sex abuse" and scout/scouts/scouting. I went back over only the last 2 years, rather than go back to the 1980s (which really would be too much like work) and the results are available for all to read at [2] (warning: over 200 articles, so this is a long document, over 400 pages). Of course this collection of articles is a mechanical exercise, so there are *plenty* of false positives; however there are enough examples to prove the (one would have thought self-evident and already demonstrated) point. Testbed 22:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I read the first 40 of 265 article - none of them mentions recent cases. There were some perhaps - but if you want to prove that you should give individual references. --jergen 08:21, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Precisely. The Youth Protection Plan obviously can't prevent new legal cases involving ACTS committed before it's introduction, but has substantially made Scouting a much safer environment, much more so than things like youth sports leagues, etc. which haven't addressed the issue at all. Will there always be an occaisional incident of abuse? Unfortunately yes, but considering that BSA is the nations largest youth organization with 4 million members, it's record in combatting sexual abuse of children still stands well ahead of everyone else. It's safe to say that more youth and parents have learned about preventing Child Sexual Abuse thorugh BSA's program than through any other agency. This article purports to say that it has not. GCW50 15:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I've never said that there has only been one case since the introduction of YPP. It is just that this article was pretty much based on the Washington Post articles that are 20 years old. While I am quite sure there have been several cases since YPP, only one such case has been presented until now. YPP is a good program, but it is not and cannot ever be perfect. There are still going to be folks who ignore the rules or ignore the evidence- that is just plain human nature as repugnant as it may be. Unfortunately, this is my opinion, and it does not count as a reference. The article cannot stand with only one case presented since YPP to show this point on either side. I skimmed through page 133 and found one article on an abuse incident that involved BSA leader in the Scouting context post-1988, not counting an article on Stowell, who is already documented. There are a few non-USA incidents and several pre-1988 incidents. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

"I've never said that there has only been one case since the introduction of YPP." Just to be clear: the number of BSA cases question did not come from you. The page has been repeatedly edited to say inter alia All of the cases described occurred before the BSA's Youth Protection program was placed in effect but despite these efforts one case came to light subsequently - this rather odd wording was not your doing. Looking at a quick two-year slice of stories was simply a way to deal with this point (and if the first 133 pages of over 400 produces a new BSA case from the last two years, how many will emerge from looking at the whole file, and then, by extension, by going back twenty years?) However people might also want to use the material to improve the "international" element. Testbed 06:08, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I looked at your last fifty cases. Only one involved an act in BSA after the YPP and that was from the late 1980's while it was being introduced. A simple crawl is not research worthy of footnoting in Wikipedia. GCW50 15:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Delete this POV hack job

The article is a very POV attack against BSA, describing ancient history from a period when the public in general didn't treat sexual abuse seriously in any venue. BSA developed and implemented it's Youth Protection Program in the late 1980's to prevent such problems AHEAD of most other youth organizations and is still considered the leader in such efforts. Obviously, the problem is harder to solve in an organization that takes kids camping, but BSA deserves more credit than this simple rehash of the Scouts Honor hack job. As the largest youth organization by a few orders of magnitude, there will still be a few cases (any case is one too many) but BSA is still the leader among all youth organizations in fighting this problem. GCW50 19:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

If you think something should be deleted, you should submit it at WP:AFD. If the consensus there is to keep it's kept, if to delete, it's delted. Bringing it up here won't get the issue resolved. Rlevse 01:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

See [3] for coverage of more recent cases (e.g. in 2005). Or all the post-1980s cases I quoted on the Talk:Scouting discussion page Testbed 17:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Testbed

No case involving children was posted there and you were instructed to post your comments here. The quality of your "research" is discussed below GCW50 15:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Recent reports

Stayed away from editing this page for some months (the propaganda instincts of some scout-enthusiastic editors seems rather unscholarly) in the hope that other editors would come in and improve the page. Hasn't yet happened, despite all the attention which other pages on sex abuse receive. Anyway, thought it might help if I provided some recent citations for the benefit of others:

Eureka Times Standard (California), May 7, 2008: Scout leader gets five years for molestation - An assistant Boy Scout leader charged with molesting two minors was sentenced Tuesday to five years and eight months in prison for one count of possession of chid pornography and two counts of child molestation, the Humboldt County District Attorney's Office said. Testbed (talk) 16:00, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The Associated Press State & Local Wire, April 30, 2008: A longtime Boy Scout volunteer was arrested Wednesday on charges he tried to sexually abuse a boy while working on a project. Irvin Austin Barron, 78, of Altoona, was charged with assault with intent to commit sexual abuse. Officials with the Polk County sheriff's office said the incidents occurred on more than one occasion while Barron and the 15-year-old boy were alone...Barron was chairman of the troop committee in Altoona, said Ely Brewer, scout executive of the Mid-Iowa Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which oversees the organization in central Iowa. Testbed (talk) 16:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Lewiston Morning Tribune (Idaho), April 22, 2008: In Idaho Falls, a new cadre of Scouting leaders has similarly reversed the unconscionable negligence of predecessors toward a Mormon missionary and camp counselor who molested no fewer than 24 boys. Although former council Director Brad Allen was told of Bradley Stowell's abuse of children in 1995, he covered for Stowell for two more years while telling other Scout leaders there was "no basis to the allegations." Meanwhile, the basis grew. At least four more boys had been abused by Stowell by the time he was arrested in 1997, and later sent to prison.

Wisconsin State Journal, April 12, 2008: A former Boy Scout leader and soccer coach pleaded guilty Friday to having repeated encounters with teenage boys that involved trading money, drugs or alcohol for sex...Under a plea agreement approved by Dane County Circuit Judge Stuart Schwartz, Francis pleaded guilty to four counts of repeated sexual assault of a child...Assistant District Attorney Robert Kaiser and Francis' attorney, Jordan Loeb, did not agree to any sentencing limits. Francis faces up to 40 years of combined prison and extended supervision on each count. Francis was charged in October with paying the boys for sex after the allegations surfaced during an investigation of a serious traffic crash involving Francis' son. Boys who were interviewed by Dane County sheriff's investigators said they had been involved in sexual activity with Francis as early as 2003. The last of the encounters, according to a criminal complaint, occurred on Oct. 13, only about 10 days before Francis was charged in the case.

Buffalo News (New York), April 4, 2008: Norman F. Grimm Jr., a former South Buffalo Boy Scout leader and church custodian, today was sentenced to 15 years in prison for molesting three young boys in his Ryan Street home...David G. Jay, Grimm's attorney, told the judge Grimm "stepped up to the plate and admitted his responsibility with his combined guilty pleas of last summer. The mothers of all three boys, now ages 6, 8 and 9, were in the courtroom.

Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City), March 17, 2008: Robert Michael Tubbs used two of the most trusted titles in the community to prey on teenage boys. As a Scoutmaster, he sodomized four brothers ages 12 to 17 for more than a year...Tubbs became acquainted with his victims -- four brothers ages 12 to 17 -- through the Order of the Arrow, the Boy Scouts of America brotherhood of select young men who best exemplify the Scout oath and law, which includes terms like trustworthy, loyal and kind. Tubbs was an area leader...In separate incidents, he groped and sodomized the boys from June 1992 to August 1993. At age 17, as one of the victims was preparing for an LDS mission, the boy told his bishop about the abuse. The church leader called the police and Tubbs was arrested. Testbed (talk) 16:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York), January 19, 2008: Word that a Troop 43 assistant Scout leader had been charged with four felony sex offenses left Cayuga County Boy Scout Council Executive Don Grillo with a sense of betrayal.

UPI, November 21, 2007: A 33-year Boy Scouts of America veteran faces charges in Illinois following the emergence of journal entries allegedly describing relations with young boys. Charles Bickerstaff, 56, is the subject of a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 16-year-old boy detailing an alleged 10-month sexual relationship with Bickerstaff, the Rockford (Ill) Register-Star reported Wednesday. Bickerstaff, imprisoned since April on a $3.5 million bail in the Lee County, Ill., jail, also faces multiple counts of child molestation with the 16-year-old boy.

The Seattle Times, August 23, 2007, "Brothers force Scouts to reveal scope of abuse": ...Finally, after decades of silence, the Stewart brothers grew convinced they weren't alone. In 2003, they sued the Boy Scouts and their former Scoutmaster and won an out-of-court settlement. Four years later, the case has become a landmark in the 97-year history of the Boy Scouts, and the brothers spokesmen for a much larger issue. For the first time, the Boy Scouts of America has been forced to turn over, to the Stewarts' attorneys, its entire archive on sexually abusive Scout leaders. The previously private records show the Boy Scouts have ejected at least 5,100 adult leaders nationwide for sexual abuse allegations since 1946. And the files reveal that despite efforts to keep potential abusers from joining, the problems persist: In the past 15 years alone, the organization has kicked out leaders for such allegations at a rate of once every other day...And there have been complaints about thousands of other Scout leaders in the U.S. In fact, since its founding in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America has kept files on volunteers it considers "unfit," including sexual abusers, criminals and even homosexuals. The organization has periodically purged the files, according to depositions in other cases. As early as 1935, the organization had files on about 1,000 "degenerates." The Stewarts' attorneys counted 732 files from 1946 to 1971...The secrecy of the files has also meant that the Boy Scouts have kept them from their own sex-abuse advisers, a group of respected experts first convened in the late 1980s to help craft a youth-protection program. During the past 15 years, the group repeatedly suggested that the Boy Scouts study the files to see whether their prevention measures were working, said one adviser, David Finkelhor, who heads the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. But the Scouts' lawyers rebuffed the recommendation, Finkelhor said. Because of that resistance, it's impossible to know whether the organization has overcome the "reputation or mythology" that has developed about sexual abuse in Scouting, Finkelhor said...According to the files opened by the Stewarts' lawyers, the Boy Scouts ejected a leader, on average, once every three days between 1971 and 1990. From 1991 to 2005, the total was about 2,500 adult volunteers, a rate of about 15 a month, or one every other day.

And the full text of another Seattle Times article is available here: [4]. It finishes with the words: "They have thrown just an unbelievable amount of money and effort at preventing us from getting these records and telling the world about them," he said of the Boy Scouts.

Testbed (talk) 15:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Where is the research? The reports show that incidents have happened, but there has been no research since the 1991 Washington Times investigation based on records from 1971 to 1986. I really would like to see a new report that would document the effectiveness of the Youth Protection Program after 20 years. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Precisely. A similar simple web crawl for articles on "automobile accidents" could lead to the conclusion that all automobile drivers are guilty of causing fatal accidents. A web crawl is not research unless you place it in context against the base number of persons engaged in the activity. There are close to a million adults currently involved in Scouting in the USA and four million Youth and over 100 million historically, Because of the YPP, the rate of the problem in Scouting is probably much lower than most youth sports leagues, public schools or even some churches. GCW50 (talk) 02:05, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Worldwide view

As regards the long-standing tag that the article is too US-orientated, here are a couple of recent references from other countries:

The Daily Telegraph (Australia), September 14, 2007: Senior scout officials ignored at least three warnings that a Sydney scout master was a serial paedophile, allowing him to abuse a young boy hundreds of times. In an extraordinary failure of their child protection duties, the scout leaders chose not to act on information that one of their own was a predator. Yesterday, former scout Xavier McCrae was awarded more than $1.2 million compensation after suffering years of sexual abuse at the hands of scout master Robert Potter. In 1988 and 1994 two families made separate complaints to the scouts about Potter, a senior leader of the Narwee Venturers. A third warning came in 1996 when police passed on an anonymous call about Potter from the dob-in line during the Wood Royal Commission's investigation into paedophiles. Yesterday, after his client was awarded the compensation, Mr McCrae's solicitor Greg Walsh said the scouts had failed to act on the complaints about Potter.

South Wales Echo, April 23, 2008: Pensioner and former scout master Glyndwr Jones committed acts of gross indecency and indecent assaults on young boys and girls in a catalogue of abuse dating back more than 20 years. He committed 26 acts on nine youngsters, some as young as eight Testbed (talk) 16:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what's your point here. As far as I can see, only some of the reports above meet the definition "situations where youth involved in scouting programs have been sexually abused by someone who is also involved in the scouting program" - in many cases "scoutmaster" seems to be a mere descriptor.

Could you please formulate your propositions on the article in a few sentences instead of posting a dozen possible copyright violations? --jergen (talk) 12:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The article is tagged as needing more worldwide examples. I will it up to others to assess how best to proceed (and maybe it would be a good idea to wait on some new editors who have not yet contributed to this discussion, as the positions of the established names on this page are probably familiar by now). Incidentally, in all the cases I quote from, the (full) reports make it exactly clear what was going on, so I leave it to you to research further if that's important to you. I am not minded to try editing the page further but am encouraging others to get involved.

As to any possible copyright infringement, I am relying on UK case law, with which I am familiar. There may be considerations in other jurisdictions with which I know nothing about. Testbed (talk) 19:48, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the {{globalize/USA}} tag means it needs more examples from other countries - rather, it means that the article itself is US-centric. An example would be in the intro itself, where "The Boy Scouts of America, the nations largest youth organization" could be better rephrased as "The Boy Scouts of America, the largest youth organization in the United States". Likewise, every section from then on focusses entirely on the US. "History of sexual abuse in scouting" may as well be "History of sexual abuse in scouting in the United States", and so on. I realise that a year ago there was a proposed move to Sexual abuse of children in the Boy Scouts of America and nothing came of it, but I seriously feel that something like Scouting sex abuse cases in the United States would relay exactly what the article currently covers, and what it has covered for the last year+, and if ever the article can be expanded to not be so US-centric, then it could be moved back to the current title. Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 20:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The current article is about child sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America. There is no adult-adult abuse, nothing about the Girl Scouts of the USA or any other Scouting group. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if my point was unclear. My point was not that the other proposed title was inappropriate, and certainly not that I thought the current article covers adult-adult abuse, or abuse of Girl Scouts. My point was that the current article focusses exclusively on the US, whereas the article's title does not reflect this. The only reasons I suggested Scouting sex abuse cases in the United States over Sexual abuse of children in the Boy Scouts of America were because A, the previous move request to the latter title resulted in no consensus, and B, it is simply an "in the United States" version of the current title. I have no real preference over any title (within reason) that notes that this article deals solely with the US. (Sorry for not responding to this sooner - I missed it on my watchlist) Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 05:21, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, having just read your review from last year, my point is summarised quite excellently by your very first point there: "As noted, the title implies a world-wide scope, but the body is BSA specific except for a few minor statements". My point is, basically, the exact same thing you've mentioned there. I do ramble on a bit, I admit. My proposed solution to this issue which still hasn't resolved itself in this past year would be to either expand the article to not focus singularly on the US, or to rename the article to reflect its focus. As you can probably tell, I'm not an experienced contributor in this area, so I was mainly just having my say as Testbed asked for uninvolved editors. My only ever edits to this article have been to 1 unsubst the {{globalize}} tag and add {{essay-entry}} to it (my reasoning was in the edit summary), and 2 fix two external links that were wikified as internal links. Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 05:32, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Still a US only perspective

In the second line we have "In some instances, the victims have laid formal charges". In my country, Australia, victims don't press charges. The police charge alleged offenders.

I see from the discussion above that the article has been accused of being US centric for several years now. While someone has now added some New Zealand material, I think that charge still applies. Would those who really want an article on Scouting sex abuse cases in the USA (clearly most of the contributors) please move their stuff to a new article? Or at least learn something about the rest of the world before putting garbage in the first paragraph! HiLo48 (talk) 04:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I think someone did some quick Googling and added the NZ content to make a quick and ineffective fix. The article is BSA centric and really isn't going to change. It needs to be renamed to "Child abuse in the Boy Scouts of America" and expanded to cover hazing and other abuse as well. The 1985 assault at Goshen Scout Reservation was one of the incidents that lead to the BSA implementation of the Youth Protection program. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If anyone wants evidence of consent for the above rename, I add my support to the idea. DiverScout (talk) 11:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Can this note be removed now? Looks fairly worldly to me Myk606040Myk60640 (talk) 00:50, 20 March 2010 (UTC) and former Eagle Scout

Why not. It is still a rotten article and is turning into a list of whatever can be found on the web. There is no real coherency to it. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:54, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Broader perspective is good, but needs care.

Thank you to Myk60640 for the international cases. It has improved the breadth of the article. But I'm a little concerned about a couple of those cases. Keeping child pornography photos, while illegal in most places and unsavoury to most of us, is not really sex abuse, which IS the topic of this article. And a couple of the cases do not say when the abuses occurred. This is a very important omission because of the fact that most Scouting bodies have now introduced strong child protection policies and most, if not all, of the cases listed occurred before such policies were in place. It's only fair to highlight that the changes seem to have worked.

HiLo48 (talk) 05:11, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I made changes to address HiLo48's comments Myk60640 (talk) 13:58, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I have just tidied up the non-USA cases a lot, but am still unhappy about the list.

I removed one New Zealand "case" completely because the reference given did not mention it at all. For others, I have cleaned up references and added details of when the offences occurred. They were generally some decades ago, presumably reflecting the success of much stricter assessment of leader applicants in recent times.

I am concerned that the two Canadian "cases" in the list only mention people being charged, not convictions. I searched for further information on both but found nothing to show that these cases had concluded with either of the men being found guilty. I am leaning towards removing them from the list to be fair to both the men involved and to Scouting.

HiLo48 (talk) 22:36, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

A few updates and comments. I recently added most of the abuse cases outside of the US and did so carefully. I also have deleted the unproven cases in Canada, and replaced them with convicted criminals. I believe it is important to have both old and new settled abuse cases on these pages, because it shows 1) there has been a long history of these cases over many decades from the 1980s to 2000s, in the US and internationally. 2) it does not diminish the importance of a given case even though it happened years ago. Sure, the Boy Scouts have made improvements over the years to stop abusers from being scout leaders, but bottomline, abuse is still occurring, as these incidents reflect. Next, I have revised the section title to “Sex abuse examples by country” as the title starting the abuse section. I believe this is important because if you simply say “abuse cases,” some readers (especially those who skip the opening paragraph and jump directly to the abuse cases) may interpret theses cases as being ALL of the abuse cases in Scouting known to have occurred during these times. They may think there are no others worldwide. We educated folks know that is not the case, but instead these cases are just “examples” of the abuse cases that have occurred in the past few decades. I believe this adapted title is appropriate, accurate and more concise, especially for those readers who may skip from the top of the page directly to the abuse cases themselves. If someone has a better alternative for accomplishing this goal, I am open to suggestions. Peace. Myk60640 (talk) 16:52, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Myk60640 - your edits are fine. Yes, it's valid to list cases whenever and wherever they occurred, so long as the examples generally reflect the distribution both internationally and over time. And I'd be confident that there were quite a few incidents before the 1980s. It's just more difficult to find them documented in electronic form. If we could ever achieve it, I would like to see documentation of the impact around the world of different Scouting policies (eg. single sex vs co-ed), changes to child protection rules within different Scouting bodies, and differences in national laws around the world. A big ask, I know, but we might as well aim high. Keep up the good work. HiLo48 (talk) 17:10, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

An article in two parts - one geographically balanced, the other all about the USA

The article has two main sections, firstly, Examples by country, then secondly, a section of roughly equal size, with the odd name of Background, which is entirely about the Boy Scouts of America.

Some good work over the past few months has brought some balance to the "by country" section, but with half the article being exclusively about BSA, we still have a big problem. I'm tempted to suggest removing that whole section and adding relevant parts of it to articles more correctly about just the BSA.

HiLo48 (talk) 13:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

This started as a BSA article, but the creator used an ambiguous title. Someone added the global tag, then editors started searching the web for random articles. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:36, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I was one of those editors who added global material. It's the classic problem that starts with a US based editor not thinking globally in the first place - for a global encyclopaedia. Happens far too often in Wikipedia. Which way should we go? Back to just the US, or break up the article? HiLo48 (talk) 21:59, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that a global one is better. BTW lack of non-USA material in that one section isn't caused by editors, it's caused by lack of / absence of editors. More people like you are needed. North8000 (talk) 11:08, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Recent addition

The recent Oregon case addition I believe is wp:undue, furthering the stated issues with this article. Also a soapbox for a critic, inferring that a case about an event 27 years ago speaks about the current situation. North8000 (talk) 10:19, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you. The addition makes no mention at all of when the abuse actually occurred. That, at least, needs to be corrected, and probably even emphasised, because a lot has changed since that time. And the addition is certainly a POV one. Such abuse is never nice, but the addition is full of unacceptable speculation. HiLo48 (talk) 07:09, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

We've just had a couple of additions to the England section with a similar problem. The language isn't quite as loaded, but the same problem exists of no indication of when the offences occurred. The sources don't help, because they don't tell us either. (Pretty crappy sources IMHO) HiLo48 (talk) 10:38, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

My comment was going to be that the Oregon case is probably significant for the overall topic and so should probably be in here, but to change the material to cover the case rather than POV opinions/spin of others. And the England case is just a case which doesn't reflect on the overall topic. But then I noticed that there are lots of such in there, probably encouraged by the title wording. Is this a list article? If not that I think is what it needs is more overview type coverage from objective RS's. North8000 (talk) 12:58, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, thanks for the revealing comments above, which remind me of so many from earlier years. The unmistakeable sounds and smells of dib-dib-dibbing around the old camp fire are what eventually drove me away from Wikipedia (that and some offline detective work which showed a celebrated Wikieditor with an interest in this page to be a convicted sex abusing scoutmaster). I don't have a line on scouting (or any other groups with problems with abuse for that matter) but some other editors and their friends clearly do. That's the real WP:Neutral_point_of_view problem, imho. Anyway, as someone mentioned the wording of the title, I suggest people who want to improve this article take a careful look at Catholic sex abuse cases (and the related pages and discussions) for a guide as to how WP:Paper applies to these subjects. Testbed (talk) 14:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

The first half of your post seemed to be kind of general ad hominem. But your thought on looking at that Catholic sex abuse cases article is an excellent one, and I looked at it. It sort of has overview and analysis type information in lieu of tending towards being a "list" article, and I think that that would be a good direction for this article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:50, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Testbed, that's a fairly offensive post. Do you go out of your way to be inflammatory, or are you naturally that way? Undirected but clear accusations of POV pushing and paedophilia among editors, and silly, archaic insults towards Scouting, are never going to help make this a better encyclopaedia. Why couldn't you have just posted your final sentence, which was at least a little useful, without the destructive earlier words? HiLo48 (talk) 19:54, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that you were more perceptive than me when reading that severe post. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:36, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Second sentence of the lead is unsourced and pure POV

My attention was drawn to it by someone copying it from here to add to Catholic sex abuse cases, assuming that because it was OK there it would be OK there. Why is it OK here? HiLo48 (talk) 21:22, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The second sentence is "It is felt by some that the incidence of sexual abuse is exaggerated, however, in any organization as large as the Boy Scouts, there is a chance for abuse to occur." To analyze it a bit (rather than say "OK" or not): Since the statement of the first half is "It is felt by some" rather that "is exaggerated" I think that it's it plausible and sourcable. The second half is sort of a "sky is blue" statement. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:30, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with HiLo48. The statement isn't sourced, uses weasel words, and has a clear POV. Mnnlaxer (talk) 21:09, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Adding tags to article

I have added several tags to the article as per WP:OR "Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought." These comments should be sourced or deleted. ResearchEditor (talk) 04:33, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I see no such Tags in the Article currently. The issue must have been fixed by now. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 05:50, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Newer Boy Scouts helped

Here is new remark dates 16-September-2012 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-boy-scouts-files-20120916,0,6937684.story? Can other one update based on new information? 88.146.161.215 (talk) 18:09, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Weight

Shoving the full discussion about the BSA and its plan and its lawsuits etc is really undue weight. It makes it seem as the the BSA is the only organization in US Scouting, when GSA and others are very big too. Relative to other nations, it makes it seem like the US has an exceptionally bad record on this, but there's no evidence for that.

Create a summary on par with other nations, and leave all the BSA-specific legal wrangling to the BSA-specific article. --HectorMoffet (talk) 22:15, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I understand your point about not letting the situation in the USA dominate this global article. You're quite right about that. But once we take a global perspective it's hard to include material on bodies that are not members of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), which only allows one member body per country. In the USA's case, that BSA. HiLo48 (talk) 22:27, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Eddie Graham

With the events of this case having taken place in the 1980s, prior to the introduction of modern child protection systems, is it really adding to the article? I cannot see any especial note to this one - and iirc the article is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all historic cases? DiverScout (talk) 08:40, 15 July 2015 (UTC)