yknot

I made similar points about that report as well in the Councils thread. There has been a significant amount of research done on child sexual abuse in the U.S. to confirm that there is in fact a significant magnitude of difference between male and female CSA. Some routinely cited figures report 1 in 5 girls vs. 1 in 20 boys. At that rate, or anything close to it, it means the study you cited is claiming that a vast percentage of American school girls would have had to have been assaulted at some point during their school day. Seems unlikely. It could be true, but my point is without a well crafted study comparing apples to apples it's not that useful or factual.

Yes, and that's exactly what I'm talking about. Statistics such as this that include girls can't be used for comparison to abuse that occurred in boy scouts because it has with a few exceptions largely been committed against boys in our organization. While anecdotally believed to be underreported, the sexual abuse rate among boys is a fraction of what it is among girls. Finally, this is an international report and cannot be used to compare to US or European rates because of cultural differences, largely regarding girls, such as you see in parts of Africa and South America. It is possible that boys are actually safer in boy scouts, but there are no valid studies that actually compare the rates of abuse among boys in scouting to abuse rates among boys in the broader world and can support that. Until there are such studies, the only hard numbers we have to go by are what has been reported to the places I noted.

Without reputable sources, this opinion can pretty much be interpreted as demonizing as well because it belittles the position that victims have that the BSA was at fault. I think the only hard figures I have seen regarding child abuse are the claims made in the BSA bankruptcy, the Catholic Church lawsuits, and the U.S. Gymnastics cases. Most everything else has been someone's personal extrapolation or questionable one off sources.

I didn't comment on that study that you cited because the percentages completely defy other research but more importantly, common sense. Sexual abuse of elementary school students in a school setting is not as common as among older students (although that changes OUTSIDE the school environment). They are too well supervised. That means a much higher rate of abuse occurs among middle school and high school age students. There are high rates of abuse among high school AGE students, but not in a school setting. To victimize say 15% of high school students, means that about 35% of girls in any given school would be affected. Teachers would have to be tackling them in the hallways to produce that. Which brings me to another point. In scouting, we are myopically focused on boys. In child sexual abuse, boys are actually abused at significantly lower rates than girls. So you are not comparing apples to apples when you throw out rates of child abuse as comparisons if you don't separate it by gender. There have been studies and reports that have shown that abuse rates among boys may be higher than thought because of the male culture to just get over it, but then that would also apply in scouting. The 84,000 claims reported in scouting is likely a minimal number. Even with weeding out possibly false claims, there are many victims who have died or are not yet ready to talk about their abuse. There is a lot to youth protection in the scouting setting that BSA has really never looked at or examined. There are now thousands of claims, and hundreds of letters, that will be full of useful facts that can be analyzed and perhaps used to improve it.

In my opinion, one large mistake BSA keeps making is believing that it is on a level playing field with other organizations when it comes to youth protection needs and refusing to acknowledge that it is not. 1) There are some pretty consistent statistics that show 88% of all child abusers are male and BSA, even today, is largely male based. Girl Scouts is mostly female run. Sports, even when segregated by gender, are generally run in settings that include a lot of women. 2) BSA is the only youth organization that promises a higher standard of character and morals and has designed its whole program around those core laws and beliefs. Parents, children, and the broader community all expect a higher level of behavior from anyone involved in scouting. That message is inherent in its marketing and it infers to parents that your kids will be safer with scouts. BSA has also made concerted efforts to recruit all kids, not just the ones with vigilant parents. It encourages the view that scouting can be good for boys who are troubled or in need of a father image -- attributes that we know make such boys more vulnerable to predators. 3) BSA is the only youth organization that routinely takes youth into remote locations out of general public view with unrelated adults for overnight activities, many of which require some personal situations. I don't know of any other organization where kids are visiting back country latrine ditches with a buddy for example. There are other factors but these are some of the unique characteristics to scouting that require it to have higher standards for youth protection at a minimum. Just as in the workplace, physical safety standards are on one level for a retail establishment and at another more stringent level for a welding shop. Scouting is in the same kind of situation but it keeps trying to equate itself with team sports or 4-H or Girl Scouts.

We've kind of been over this a couple times before but you can't compare sports to scouts. Rank and file sports kids are not going on campouts once a month with unrelated adults in remote locations and staying overnight. Most sports practices and games are conducted at facilities in public view, which parents attend. Other officials are often there. Most school and municipal facilities generally have security cameras. Most schools now have security cameras everywhere except bathrooms and locker rooms. I don't know of any travel teams other than college where parents don't routinely travel with their player and generally stay in the same hotel rooms together. It is not comparable. Scouting has to have more policies because of what it is and does with kids. Frankly, I've been involved in scouts and sports for years and there isn't really much difference. Yes, I've yet to see a coach run out of a gym because he suddenly realized he was the only adult in the room with a bunch of kids the way I have seen an ASM run out of a troop meeting. However, in the coach case generally the gym doors are open, there's a custodian around somewhere, an administrator is sticking their head in the door... it's different.

Parental accountability is part of the problem. BSA, when marketing to increase membership, routinely articulates that scouting is good for all boys and now, with the addition of girls, all children. It does not market itself as a program that is only good for children of vigilant parents. Scouting certainly tries to encourage parents to be involved, but in a weird and not always successful way. BSA wants you on the camp out, but you need to stay 100 yards away from the kids. There are some very mixed messages in scouting and some program elements that make it very porous for predators to enter and operate..

Except a lot of teacher abuse claims are for all abuse, not necessarily sexual. I do think some assessment of order of magnitude would be very useful.

This stupidity strategy is employed quite a bit. A lot of financial institutions play it. I've encountered this kind of nonsense with personal accounts, trying to administer estates, and in business.

Before anyone can answer that question you would have to consider at least two additional things: Scale and comparable time periods. There are 3.5 million teachers in the US and 57 million school children creating many opportunities for abuse. There are far fewer scouters and scouts. For example, in 2014, there were 1 million adult volunteers involved in scouting and 2.6 million scouts, creating far fewer opportunities for abuse. A useful comparison of incidents would also have to select for comparable time periods. I think the one good thing that might come out of this mess is better data sets and societal awareness regarding the incidence of child abuse. Do I think BSA, given all the other aspects of this issue that we know, should be held less accountable? No. BSA was near custom designed to be a pedophile buffet and did not recognize the warning signs or effectively act on warnings, many of which were issued from its earliest inception.

Let's just agree to disagree on BSA. I think individual scouters' views of BSA have much to do with personal experience. If you had my experiences and saw things from my perspective, you might agree with why I wrote that. And perhaps if I'd had yours, I'd think differently than I do.

One of the valuable things about this thread, in addition to the excellent legal information and analysis, has been the perspectives from people who have actually been abused. I can go to any scouting venue, forum or friend, and hear hundreds of opinions from people who know a lot about scouting but a lot less about child abuse, which is the single biggest crisis ever to face scouting. This is the only place that I know of where a handful of people have been willing to give firsthand accounts of some of the incidents that have all but destroyed something that we love. They've given their opinions. They've asked and answered questions. I can't imagine the kind of courage it took ThenNow, for example, to make his first post here in what he had to know was hostile territory. I thank him for being forthcoming at the cost of what seems at times to be great personal pain. I've learned a lot from his voice. And while this isn't really our role in this forum, one thought keeps coming to mind for me as I peruse the letters that were posted -- and I could only read a few, they were so gut churning: So many of these abused children, because that's what they were, will probably never get their day in court to tell their story. And so many of them want and need that to help them heal. This forum has at least given a handful of people, who represent thousands, to tell their story to a group of, hopefully, sympathetic scouting peers. BSA will never do that, but we can.

Earlier in this process, people had speculated whether the Biden administration would step in to aid scouting and I pointed out the existence of that foundation and the family history. I was just being consistent in doing the same in light of the fact that now there has been some federal involvement. Sorry I should have provided that background.

https://www.beaubidenfoundation.org/ I'm not surprised there might be federal interest in ensuring justice for CSA survivors based on this: https://www.beaubidenfoundation.org/

I got a donation request yesterday from council that insisted all funds stay local.

The dilemma is that while scouting in many regions is indeed over-camped -- I think there are almost 10 within 90 minutes of where I am -- without access to convenient camps, many units will fade away. It's harder to get adult volunteers on weekends when they have to drive more than an hour or so. And the really sad part to me is the impending loss of all this undeveloped camp acreage across the country.

I agree that kids like the out of doors but I disagree that scouts really offers much of it anymore. In a previous post I mentioned how nature centers jumped into the gap by offering Covid suitable programming during the pandemic. Their memberships have burgeoned while scouting has tanked. Parents love it when their kids come home talking about hiking and birds and butterflies and trees. Unlike their typical cub scout leader or ASM, the nature center naturalist can actually tell them what animal made that track or the name of the bird they just saw. BSA is really not that outdoors focused.

I think there is a lot more boomer influence in the parent role than you may realize. I know too many women who had kids into their 40s and those kids are mid teens today. Too many dads whose last kid is that age or younger as well. Not trying to quibble over demographics just saying there is still a generational influence in scouting that is very supportive but is on the cusp of disappearing. Edit -- Also, it is Boomer age volunteers who are still filling most of the volunteer leadership positions in our units and many district level posts even though their own children have aged out, many for years.

Congratulations on your future cub and thanks for reminding us grumpy old people that great young people are always out there.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The Boomer generation is still significantly influencing and populating the scouting movement and there are not many more years left where it will still be present. That's going to have a continuing depressive effect on membership.

I think it's more about specialization. Families don't want to waste time or money on activities that don't meet their exact needs and interests. Other youth organizations have adapted to this. A kid interested in soccer, for example, can find options to play rec, local travel, regional travel, or elite travel. I don't agree about the outdoors. During the pandemic when units shut down, many nature centers offered Covid friendly programming and their membership rolls burgeoned while BSA's has tanked. A lot of those kids don't want to come back to scouting because of being too much like homework. Allowing STEM tracks, outdoors tracks, citizenship tracks would allow it to appeal to more youth with differing interests.

I kind of disagree. The biggest supporters of scouting in my neck of the woods are younger boomers who still have relatively young kids and then to a lesser degree, Gen X'ers. We are still out there supporting things like scouts and sports and all the legacy community organizations. I think when the last cohort of younger boomers with scout aged kids, which I'm in, ages out in the next few years, it's going to be noticeable. Which is to say I agree that BSA is going to have a tough time producing a business model that supports retaining all these camp and HA bases.

Well, I'm a boomer with a young teen and so are most of my friends who have/had kids in the program. I don't know if we gravitated to each other because of the generational thing but here we are. Not uncommon for people to have had kids or adopted late in life or be on second marriages with younger kids. We have also been the ones running things. A good segment of Gen X'ers right below us too-- thank the Lord for you guys. Millennials? Uh, almost none.

It seems kind of obvious but you do hope. I don't know about Gen Z. First off, I see them putting off having families as have Millennials. Frankly, I look out over the units I see and there are still a lot of Baby Boomer parents here with adolescents and teenagers, especially dads. We're still riding the membership connection to that generation.

Given that scouts is at 750,000 now, 1 million may be optimistic. The success of this fall's recruitment will be informative when it's seen how many scouts return. There could be a big bounce but it's also possible there could be yet additional attrition. The pandemic has changed a lot of things -- family priorities, finances, youth interests. It's unclear how these changes could affect recruitment. I have wondered what happens if at some point during Chapter 11 it becomes clear that scouting is a dinosaur on life support.