Scouter99

Only negative that I've heard from a youth so far was that he hated all the cell phone encouragement from National. He ended up delayed or alone because everyone in his troop was planning their activities around how much battery they had left: "Oh, I can only go X far, I've only got 5% battery" and/or "I can't leave yet I have to wait for my phone to be charged."

http://www.scoutingmagazine.org/issues/9905/a-fval.html These two program itineraries from 2008 (http://www.patriotspoint.org/pdf/pod/293812131082911.pdf) and 2010 (http://www.patriotspoint.org/pdf/pod/115920611022001.pdf) both show the historic trail introduction as part of the regular evening program.

I witnessed an adult get physical with a scout when I was a young "under 21" and let an older adult talk me out of saying anything, and that's something I'll never forgive myself for. If the DE/Scout Exec don't remove the man, then I would call social services and/or the police myself. Unless a scout hit first, there is no excuse or reason for a man to ever "get physical" with a scout. At the same time, since you were not a witness to the events, you need to speak to the under-21 leader and make sure you understand exactly what happened, and you need to let him know exactly how you plan to proceed. Once you call, there's no take-backs, and this guy will turn into Godzilla--you already know false accusations are in his toolbox and he'll make your life miserable if you go off half-cocked. You also need to explain to the SM, CC and CoR of your new troop exactly why you are leaving this broken one.

Conclusions While it would be impossible to fully describe my findings in this brief statement, I would like to provide a few important observations as to what these files tell us about the offenders and BSA's actions in removing them and trying to keep them out of Scouting. First, nothing in these files changes the stark fact that there has never been a profile of a child sexual offender. In reviewing the entirety of these files, I was struck by the wide range of individuals charged with sexual misconduct. No single profile of a suspect offender emerges. While some have attempted to categorize these files as a "treasure trove" of information about pedophiles and their actions, that simply is not the case. The files are incomplete records of events that happened years ago. These files tell us precisely what researchers already knew, and have known for many years: some small number of men will use a position of trust and access to young people to pursue illegal sexual gratification. This is a sad reality that has been with us throughout human history. The circumstance of abuse detailed in these files, as well as the nature of the abuse alleged, vary widely. Despite the important role in identifying unfit adults for involvement in Scouting, the IV Files are very limited in their ability to answer important research questions concerning sexual abuse. Second, my review of these files indicates that the reported rate of sexual abuse in Scouting has been very low. Scouting involvement served a significant protective function for youth when compared to reported rates of abuse in other youth serving organizations, activities, and even within the family itself. It must be remembered that Scouting for many years has had well over a million registered volunteers per year. And Scouts have always significantly outnumbered volunteers in the millions. The number of offenders and child victims in these files must be kept in perspective against these vast numbers of adults and youth. For example, in 1980 BSA had approximately 1.1 million Scoutingâ€Âinvolved adults registered. In that year, only 25 IV Files were created. This indicates that 0.002 percent – or 2 per 100,000 â€Â†of all registered Scouting involved adults in that year came to the attention of BSA because of alleged inappropriate sexual behavior with a child or adolescent. This suggests that youth were safer in Scouting than in society at large. Third, the files broadly refute the notion that these were "secret files" of hidden abuse. The files show a significant amount of public knowledge of the offenders and their unlawful acts. For example, over 60% of the files being made available to the public include some kind of public information. These public domain sources included newspaper articles, police reports, criminal justice records, and records of civil litigation. The majority of men in the files were arrested at some point in their lives for a sex crime. These data indicate that more often than not, the police, the courts, and the public were aware of inappropriate sexual behavior having been attributed to these individuals. It is understandable, particularly given the years in which these files were created, that maintaining the confidentiality of the names and details encouraged the reporting of abuse without fear of retaliation against the reporter and embarrassment of the victim at a time when people did not want to recognize or deal with the sexual abuse of children. Fourth, while there are a small number of files where an alleged offender was allowed back into Scouting after offending, often because he had sought and received psychiatric treatment, those cases were extraordinarily rare. Although the medical community believed until fairly recently that these abusers could be "cured" of their unlawful urges, that is no longer the case. While BSA previously maintained a soâ€Âcalled "probationary" status allowing some men to reâ€Âenter Scouting after incidents of abuse, I have been told that this was eliminated over 20 years ago, and that no such process exists presently for the reâ€Âentry of individuals put on the IV Files for sexual misconduct. Many of the files show men attempting to reâ€Âenter the Scouting program, often many year later, often in a geographically different location, and properly being denied reâ€Âentry because their name was on the IV File. Summary In summary, my review and analysis indicate that while it was not perfect, and mistakes clearly occurred, BSA's IV File system has functioned well in keeping many unfit adults out of Scouting. Time and again in reviewing these files, I was struck by BSA's pursuit of information regarding a suspected sexual offender. These claims of abuse were not swept under the carpet and ignored. Rather, suspected offenders were pursued and often times barred from Scouting over their fervent objection and at time even the opinion of the local community. I believe that these files show that children in Scouting were safer and less likely to experience inappropriate sexual behavior in Scouting than in their own families, schools and during other community activities supervised by adults. BSA's use of a community vetting system and a national registration system succeeded in offering young people an overwhelmingly safe environment in which to grow and develop according to the values espoused by BSA." The full report can be viewed at scouting.org: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/youthprotection/pdf/WarrenReport.pdf

"September 20, 2012 Statement of Dr. Janet I. Warren Regarding BSA's Ineligible Volunteer Files Introduction I am a Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia. Among my other qualifications and professional credentials, I am the University of Virginia's liaison to the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit and sit on the Research Advisory Board of the FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. I have reviewed the more than 1,200 Boy Scout of America (BSA) "Ineligible Volunteer" (IV) Files that were produced in litigation in 2010 in Portland, Oregon and which I now understand will shortly be released to the public in a redacted form. I served as an expert witness for BSA in the Oregon trial and, in that role reviewed many of the files being released. Although my review of the files began in 2010, since that time I have had an opportunity to undertake a more detailed assessment and evaluation of the files being releases in Oregon and the kinds of information they contain. Background It must be recognized that no mental health professional, scientific researcher, law enforcement agency, or youthâ€Âserving organization has ever created a scientifically valid "profile" of a probable child sexual offender. It is an unfortunate reality that child sexual offenders, until they act, are indistinguishable from other members of society. No one has yet designed a reliable "checklist" or similar document to flag persons who will someday go on to abuse children. It would be good if such a document or system existed but it does not. Child sexual offenders can be virtually any age, married or single, with varying degrees of education, across a wide range of occupations, with varying personal traits and habits, and include persons involved in all of the same activities engaged in by good, lawâ€Âabiding members of society, including an interest in volunteering in Scouting and other youthâ€Âserving programs. While BSA and other organizations have no foolproof means to keep offenders from seeking entry into their programs, they can move swiftly to remove these individuals and bar them when wrongdoing is even suspected. This is precisely what the IV File system was designed to do. As a bit of historical background, BSA's use of such files began sometime shortly after the requirement for annuallyâ€Ârenewable registration of Scout leaders was first implemented in 1911. This was long before offender registries, computerized background checks, or even computers. In connection with the process of registering Scout leaders, a system was put in place to identify and keep out of Scouting leaders deemed unfit. The system of checking volunteers against a list of known offenders has gone by different names over the years. For example, in the 1930s it was called the "Red Flag List." In more recent times BSA has called them “IV Files.†A volunteer can be excluded from participating in Scouting for a number of reasons established by BSA, including sexually inappropriate conduct. All of the 1,200+ "P" ("perversion") files being publicly released concern some type of sexual conduct; but not all involving youth or even occurring in Scouting. I did not review files concerning exclusions from Scouting for other reasons, and those files to my knowledge are not being made public. Methodology I reviewed every one of the BSA IV Files now being made available to the public. With a team of researchers at the University of Virginia, each IV File was coded for content and statistically analyzed. The universe of IV Files reviewed spanned the period 1960â€Â1995. Every IV File attempted to capture basic identifying information about the reported offender, including name, address, age, height, weight, race, marital status, and color of hair and eyes. Some of the files contained photographs of the reported offender. Other than basic identifying information, which was captured well across the files, the files varied significantly in their content and level of detail. In many of the files there is no clear finding that the individual removed from Scouting was ever proven guilty in a court of law of the conduct reported. In some files the offender admitted the charges against him, while in others the charges were vehemently denied. While many of the victims were Boy Scouts, in some of the files the alleged victim was an acquaintance outside of Scouting, a family friend, or even a family member. In some of the files the alleged sexual abuse reportedly took place in connection with Scouting activities, but in many files it clearly occurred outside of Scouting. In many cases there is insufficient information to form a good understanding of the details of what reportedly happened. In all of these cases, despite these factual variations, the offender alleged to have engaged in sexually improper conduct with children was added to the IV File system and barred from Scouting. It is important to keep in mind that the IV Files were not created by law enforcement or academics. Nor were the files compiled for scientific research purposes. Rather, they were prepared by men and woman around the country who were in Scouting. While one can review this large collection of files spanning thirtyâ€Âfive years and find individual files where, through the benefit of hindsight, we might suppose a different course of conduct would be taken today under the same circumstances, the files document a good faith effort by men and women associated with Scouting to identify and keep out unfit adult volunteers. (the summary continues below because of the goofy character limit)

I kinda decided to stop posting in this forum; however, a reply I saw in another thread prompted me to post this. (bold mine) It seems that even scouters have bought into the trumped-up media version of the purpose and use of the ineligible volunteer (IV) files. The problem is that the hype is just that: hype. The LA Times and various outlets have mined thousands of files to find a handful of the most sordid stories and passed them off as the mode, when in fact they are outliers and do not at all represent how the BSA handles cases of abuse. The media charges that (1) The BSA is selfish to keep theses files private; that these files represent a treasure trove of information that law enforcement could use to create profiles of abusers and thereby keep youth all over the nation safe. Shame on selfish BSA! (2) That the existence of thousands of IV files means that BSA is lousy with child abusers, and that abuse is a serious danger to every boy in the organization liable to happen at any time. (3) That BSA knows it is lousy with child abusers, and has kept these files secret so that they could keep known abusers within the organization in the same way the Catholci church has moved abusers around rather than expelling them. And (4) that in many cases known abusers were allowed back into the organization and BSA should never be trusted with youth. BSA hired an FBI/University of VA expert on this subject, Dr. Janet Warren, to review all public IV files in the run-up to their court-ordered release last year. Her analysis of the files refutes every hyperbolic claim made by the LA Times et al. Below are her findings. Some councils sent their members this report, but it's clear that most did not, or if they did. their volunteers didn't hear about it or read it. Two documents were written: The full analysis and results, and a brief summary of the findings. I've pasted the summary below, and linked the full report after the summary because I think it's important for us of all people to understand that the truth is as far from the reporting as it can get. Due to the charater limit of 1 post (which is dumb), this will spill into a new post.

Football Club Discriminates Against Baseball Player Columbus, Ohio There's troubling news coming out of the suburbs of Ohio this week, where a football team has denied membership to a young baseball player. "I don't understand--I just don't understand," said Janet Smithers, speaking about her son Kaden's recent expulsion, "all my baby wants to do is play baseball, and these mean-spirited, these bigoted football parents and coaches are making him feel like he's nothing, like he's less-than!" The boy, 10, joined the football club with no problems, and had been happily participating in conditioning before the season begins. By all accounts, he was a standout, in the top of the group in physical ability. "Everyone was always saying how fast he could run, and complimenting his team spirt," Smithers explained, "then one day out come these shoulder pads and helmets and footballs, and Kaden is a Baseball player." The next day, Smithers sent her son to practice with his mitt and baseball. Kaden called about 20 minutes into practice, in tears, and asked her to come get him early. "Kaden got into the car, and my heart broke, it sank. He loved practice, but here he was in tears, and he says, 'mama, I don't want to come back here.'" Smithers took the boy home, and when he calmed down she heard his story, and it infuriated her. "That coach," she seethed, "and his band of bullies told Kaden to put his baseball things away, that this was a football team for people who play football, and that if Kaden wanted to play with the team, he'd be playing football. Can you believe the . . . the hate it would take to say something like that? This is America!! Is this America?" We contacted the coach for comment, but he eclined, referring us instead to the league. The league says it feels for Kaden, but that football teams are for football, and that's the way it's always been. Smithers, in the meantime, is not waiting on the league to find its own conscience, she has contacted Footballers for Not-Football, an advocacy group, and started an online petition. "I have to stand up for my baby's rights," she said. And wouldn't anyone.

That I've noticed, there are 3 "vocal atheists" here. 1 is a loudmouth troll, the other 2 aren't affiliated with BSA in any capacity and one of them is only around to gather info to help him with his website to excoriate BSA. So, which ones are we worried about dividing off?

Sure thing. Pet peeve.

Congrats, BD, you're famous! Someone linked this thread on the "Save Camp Richard" FB page, and it picked up your avatar as the thumbnail. Also, "Save Camp Richard" 429 likes. "Camp Richard" 8 likes. It looks like a really cool camp: http://www.campscope.com/camp-richard/

I've sent actual letters/invites via snail mail at the same time I'm sending the same for the open house, and include a photo of the ex-scout having fun on some trip or another. We've never got one back, but at the end of the day it's a $1 gamble (the photo, the stamp, the ink) so there's no reason not to try.

Put all the old leaders in one boat. Sink it.

Soooooo, do you guys sleep in a bigtop circus tent?

I don't understand you two's disagreement, since KDD said neither Cubs nor Webs could use a climbing tower, BD said Webs can rappel and cubs can climb, KDD quoted the rules which confirm BD, (here's where I lost you two) then BD kept up the offensive despite being right . . . KDD said "fairly certain" based on his council experience, now he knows his council is just more restrictive than the national policies.

Context, Stosh: He's a cub leader, not a Boy Scout leader.

When I was a kid, our troop was known for its "hammock boys," so a few years ago I went out and bought one o give the boys a laugh and maybe some inspiration. The first night I slept in it, I actually ended up on a picnic table to do the sleeping. The second time, I finally managed maybe 3 hours of sleep. 3rd time I was so kinked-up and stiff the whole next day I wanted to die. 4th time I said bollocks and it's been in its package since.

Oh, fake Venturers. Typisch. We've already lost millions in funding for fraudulent units and registrations, why not millions more? Which church are you asking to register 350 fake Venturers to each summer? Your outlined program is great, you made a mistake in the details. Act as big as your hat and get over it.

Blue Ridge's HA programs are awesome, Powhatan base camp is terrible.

I'm going to start calling you two Archie and Edith. hehehehe

False. Boy Scouts on Scout trips may not shoot pistols regardless of their age. Venturers and Sea Scouts may. That's not "splitting hairs" that's just the way it is. I've already done so; all BSA gun policies are in the Boy Scouts of America National Shooting Sports Manual I linked: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/Outdoor%20Program/pdf/30931_WB.pdf If you didn't read it, there's reason #1 you shouldn't be in charge of a shooting program. You don't, because they're not allowed to use them. Every troop in the country engages boys without pistols, if yours can't you've got a "you problem.". BSA's experiment at Jambo doesn't give you license or freedom to repeat it where you please. By the way, they can't shoot "high powered" rifles, either.

It's "moot."

You're welcome to, and I enjoyed your quotes for their insight, but I'm not looking to engage you in a debate; you asked me to provide the passages in Scott's book that had informed my statements, I did. Very little of history is concrete, we all interpret though a perspective.

Exactly, T2E.

Dept of Social Services and Child Protective Services. Common sense doesn't apply, which is exactly why it's your job to follow the rules, and this is a particularly easy rule to follow for non-experts like yourself. "Molested in the treetops" sounds wild enough to you, but I assure you it would barely register in the files of CPS. Like I said in my original comment, if it's not an extreme hassle, there's no reason not to do it if the one boy will be out of sight of the group.

Is a Colt single action a pistol? Yes. Boy Scouts are not allowed to shoot it. http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/OutdoorProgram/ShootingSports.aspx