Decades of confidential sexual abuse allegations from within the Boy Scouts of America will spill into public view later today when more than 1,200 of the organizationââ¬â¢s ââ¬Åperversion filesââ¬Â are released by order of the Oregon Supreme Court.
The files will offer the public an unprecedented look at how suspected molestations were handled by one of the nationââ¬â¢s leading youth organizations from the early 1960s through 1985, a time when awareness of sexual abuse was evolving rapidly.
At 11:30 a.m., the Los Angeles Times will begin incorporating the court files into its own online database, which contains information on nearly 5,000 such cases spanning 1947 to January 2005. The database offers a complete record of files during that period except for an unknown number of files that have been purged by the Scouts over the years. In more than 300 cases, the allegations involve someone with ties to a troop or unit in California.
ON THE MAP: Names, locations of alleged sex abuse
The abuse reports to be released today played a key role as evidence in a landmark Oregon lawsuit in 2010 that resulted in the largest judgment ever against the Scouts in a molestation case. A jury awarded nearly $20 million to a man who was molested by an assistant scoutmaster in the early 1980s, ruling that the Scouts had failed to protect him.
Afterward, the Boy Scouts petitioned to keep the files closed, a move opposed by media outlets seeking their full disclosure. In June, the Oregon Supreme Court sided with the Oregonian newspaper, the Associated Press, the New York Times, Oregon Public Broadcasting and other outlets and ordered their release after victim information had been redacted.
In recent months, The Times has published a series of stories analyzing an overlapping set of files -- nearly 1,900 cases, opened between 1970 and 1991, given to the newspaper by a Seattle attorney. Among other things, the analysis found that hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse were never reported to law enforcement, and Scouting officials repeatedly helped alleged molesters cover their tracks.
Full story
It's almost unbelievable when you see the map and the database.
The files will offer the public an unprecedented look at how suspected molestations were handled by one of the nationââ¬â¢s leading youth organizations from the early 1960s through 1985, a time when awareness of sexual abuse was evolving rapidly.
At 11:30 a.m., the Los Angeles Times will begin incorporating the court files into its own online database, which contains information on nearly 5,000 such cases spanning 1947 to January 2005. The database offers a complete record of files during that period except for an unknown number of files that have been purged by the Scouts over the years. In more than 300 cases, the allegations involve someone with ties to a troop or unit in California.
ON THE MAP: Names, locations of alleged sex abuse
The abuse reports to be released today played a key role as evidence in a landmark Oregon lawsuit in 2010 that resulted in the largest judgment ever against the Scouts in a molestation case. A jury awarded nearly $20 million to a man who was molested by an assistant scoutmaster in the early 1980s, ruling that the Scouts had failed to protect him.
Afterward, the Boy Scouts petitioned to keep the files closed, a move opposed by media outlets seeking their full disclosure. In June, the Oregon Supreme Court sided with the Oregonian newspaper, the Associated Press, the New York Times, Oregon Public Broadcasting and other outlets and ordered their release after victim information had been redacted.
In recent months, The Times has published a series of stories analyzing an overlapping set of files -- nearly 1,900 cases, opened between 1970 and 1991, given to the newspaper by a Seattle attorney. Among other things, the analysis found that hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse were never reported to law enforcement, and Scouting officials repeatedly helped alleged molesters cover their tracks.
Full story
It's almost unbelievable when you see the map and the database.
