Search

The Boy Scouts of America's (BSA's) Ineligible Volunteer (IV) files, commonly called the "perversion files," is a unique data set allowing researchers to examine organizational characteristics that allow for child sexual victimization. Despite the uniqueness of this data set, few researchers have examined it. The researchers examined a random sample of cases from the IV files of scout leaders who molested scouts. A situational crime theoretical model was employed as had been used in studies on the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal, proving effective. The researchers examined randomly selected from 1980 to 1999. Of initially examined 400 randomly selected cases, only 140 held retrievable data. The majority of the 140 cases did not have scouting victims, which resulted in a reduction to 48 cases. Beyond the several scouting forms, many files contained public domain information, including newspaper articles, police reports, criminal justice records, and/or records of civil litigation. Through both the scouting documents and the public domain records, the researchers identified six BSA-specific characteristics that allowed motivated adult leaders to molest their victims. These characteristics included (a) weak or inefficient incident reporting system, (b) failure to collect and review pertinent information, (c) organizationally legitimate reasons for one-on-one contact, (d) volunteer imbalance, (e) legitimate reasons for separation from protective adults, and (f) social status as a prophylactic defense. These structural characteristics are explored through descriptive statistics and specific case studies illustrating the phenomena. When the history of the IV files came to light through litigation, the BSA was forced to reconcile its past actions and develop new preventive measures. The Boy Scouts of America implemented various actions to protect the youth. Many of these protections specifically address structural characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred Adler diagnosed and treated offenders who committed sex crimes against persons and objects. Although he formulated clinical judgments about the causes of sexual deviance and paraphilia (e.g., lack of social interest), he did not elaborate on the variations that exist within the class of adult child molesters and their behavioral characteristics. In this article, we build on the initial observations that Adler made about the personality characteristics of sex offenders by analyzing the offense behaviors of male-on-male child molesters using the archival accounts of the "perversion files" released by The Boy Scouts of America between 1960s and 1990s. We link the offenders' offense characteristics—how adult child molesters go about committing their sex crimes against boy victims—to their personality characteristics, thereby providing an empirical bite to the claims that Adler made from his examination of numerous patients. We demonstrate how the conclusions that Adler inferred about adult child molesters—that they possess a distorted private logic, enact a false sense of courage and heroism, and act cowardly—are embodied in their offense characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020 the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) announced it was filing for bankruptcy after haemorrhaging money for years due to insurance and the legal costs associated with sexual abuse lawsuits. This set off a flurry of news articles that continue today. I use a queer feminist analysis to argue that we must look more closely at BSA history to learn how the organization has always been broadly bankrupt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tort claims for the coverup of child sexual abuse exemplify the use of civil litigation as an effective response to serious corporate misconduct. This Article analyzes how tort claims against Catholic dioceses, the Boy Scouts of America, and USA Gymnastics empowered child sexual abuse survivors to hold powerful institutional leaders accountable for covering up and facilitating the abuse. The Article demonstrates the importance of access to civil justice when corporate interests capture law enforcement and administrative agencies, as well as the therapeutic value of the litigation process for victims of traumatic injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This instrumental case study explored non-formal educators' lay theories of adolescence using the case of the Boy Scouts of America's Scouts BSA program, a co-ed program serving youth between the ages of 11 and 17. We conducted an iterative analysis of 110 structured interviews with Scouts BSA adult volunteer leaders who served as scoutmasters or assistant scoutmasters. Results indicated that participants discussed adolescence in terms of youth characteristics as well as processes youth underwent during their adolescent years. These adults sometimes viewed adolescence as idiosyncratic, identifying differences in learning, behavior, and family situations among youth, particularly those whom they had identified as exhibiting specific challenges like autism. The results also illustrated relationships between the program and lay theories of adolescence. Namely, core Scouts BSA programmatic structures and expectations such as operating the patrol/troop method hierarchies, building leadership skills, camping or outdoor activities, and including all youth in activities influence participants' own views of adolescence, including their views of adolescence as a time to cultivate maturity and independence. The study concludes with a brief discussion of results and limitations of the study, including recommendations for training and additional research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study analyzes victims' narratives of male-on-male child molestation within the Boy Scouts of America. The focus of previous literature on sex crime victims mostly centered on how to avoid sex offenders based on the offenders' behaviors and effective victims' treatment plans to alleviate their posttrauma as a result of sexual abuse. Yet studies have not provided detailed descriptions of when and how to resist sexual advances to children when such incidents are in progress within youth-oriented institutions. Few have examined victim narratives to discover the dynamics of child molestation, such as physical and verbal interactions between the two parties while sexual touching is occurring. The author used victims' narratives to identify how boy victims responded to unwanted sexual advances by scout leaders within the Boy Scouts of America. Based on qualitative-oriented analysis, this study presents verbal and physical resisting patterns of male victims and the effectiveness of such actions in terminating sexual advances. The findings suggest practical and potential intervention strategies so children know how to stop adult perpetrators from developing unwanted touching within youth-centric institutions., (© 2024 Springer Publishing Company.)

Positive youth development programs such as those offered by Boy Scouts of America (BSA) provide sources of support and opportunities for leadership and character development. Programmatic experts from BSA collaborated with researchers to develop a visual theory of change (pathway model) for youth development in Scouts BSA and for adult volunteer leader development. The pathway model was then validated through focus groups with Scouts BSA youth and adult leaders across the country. Practice mapping was employed to assess the consistency of pathway models with core adult training curricula. The models were aligned with research literature through evidence mapping. The theory of change embedded in the Scouts BSA program was aligned with the Big Three features of positive youth development programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Public backlash over the use of both longstanding and novel restructuring strategies in Chapter 11 cases affecting victims of the opioid crisis (Purdue Pharma), sexual abuse (USA Gymnastics and Boy Scouts of America) and talc-based products (LTL Management), among others, has led to recent proposed legislation focused on curtailing perceived abuses of the bankruptcy system. On July 28, 2021, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Richard Blumenthal (D-NH) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced S. 2497, the Nondebtor Release Prohibition Act of 2021 (the "NRPA") in Congress.1 If passed, the NRPA would amend the Bankruptcy Code2 to significantly restrict the ability of courts to approve non-debtor third-party releases and related injunctions -- an issue that courts have to date attempted to resolve by judicial decision, with divergent results.3 The NRPA would also limit use of the "Texas Two-Step," a restructuring strategy whereby corporations separate their assets from liabilities before bankruptcy using a unique form of divisional merger available under Texas law.4 The recent bankruptcy court decision in LTL Management finding the cases were properly filed after utilization of the Texas Two-Step to address mass tort liability will only magnify this portion of the legislation and the pressure on Congress to limit this technique. The following is an overview of issues surrounding the use of third-party releases and the Texas Two-Step, the provisions of the NRPA aimed at addressing these restructuring tools, and the ongoing debate surrounding this proposed legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the lawsuit filed by the Girls Scouts of the U.S. (GSUSA) against the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) on November 6, 2018. Topics mentioned include the alleged trademarks used by BSA that harmed GSUSA, the change of BSA's brand identity, BSA' slogan, the jurisprudence about federal trademark, and the concept of trademark dilution and trade dress.

The article discusses the use of bankruptcy as a tool to deal with mass tort litigation cases, citing several examples such as Purdue Pharma LP 's filing for U.S. Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and the Boy Scouts of America's bankruptcy. It describes how some companies have been able to create trusts to compensate claimants, both present and future, while others have faced considerable criticism and skepticism for their insincerity.

This study examined details of behavioural sequences that constitute male-on-male child molestation within the Boy Scouts of America based on the narratives reported by child victims. Previous studies largely focused on convicted offenders when reconstructing the circumstances of child molestations. Also, sex crime literature did not consistently distinguish victim's gender and age when it comes to child victims and child molestation in an educational setting. Such loopholes have made the significances of the behavioural patterns in male-on-male child molestation unknown. This qualitative study analyses the verbal and behavioural patterns of male adult scoutmaster perpetrators against boy victims at the physical contact stage. Using a fishing metaphor, we identify unique behavioural sequences of scoutmaster perpetrators and explain the implications of such behaviours in male-on-male child molestation. Details of three unique behavioural patterns of scoutmaster perpetrators in male-on-male child molestation within the Boy Scouts of America are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Ernest Thompson Seton and his expulsion from the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in the early 20th century. Seton was a naturalist, artist, author, founder of the youth program for boys called Woodcraft Indians, and co-founder of BSA. His vision of outdoor masculinity and appropriation of Native American culture, and the transition of the Boy Scouts from tribe to troop are discussed.

This paper provides an archaeological perspective on the Boy Scouts of America, placing special emphasis on Scout camps occupying Mohegan lands in southeastern Connecticut (USA) and focusing on the alteration of Indigenous and Indigenous-colonial sites. Archaeological traces demonstrate how Scouts modified a range of stone features, both ancient and recent, and how they reorganized and redefined the land by naming and bounding their camps. Considering these patterns alongside Scout material culture, including the archaeological remains of Scout habitations, we discuss Boy Scout simulations of Indigenous and Indigenous-colonial histories. Drawing upon Indigenous knowledge and critique, we explore how Boy Scout camps "territorialize" whiteness. This involves the appropriation of Indigeneity as a means of escaping the trappings of late capitalist society, the misrepresentation of Indigenous history via well-worn tropes of unilineal evolution (where things always progress from simple to complex) and the denial of colonial plurality and of continued Indigenous presence on the land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Giving guns as Christmas presents has been one of the ways in which boys and young men have traditionally been recruited into American gun culture. This paper explores how advertising in Boys' Life magazine, among other data sources, has represented this special Christmas giving in terms of suitable types and brands of guns, appropriate shooting activities, family gifting tableaux and rituals, fantasy consumption, and masculinity theory. Over the period studied, from the turn of the twentieth century until the early twenty-first, this socialization through gift-giving has been remarkably consistent and provides insight into the durability of American gun culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various perspectives on men and masculinity including the Boy Scouts of America's history of enforcing militarized masculinity, differences in masculinity attitudes based on education and migration status, and the impact of gendered practices on Jamaican adolescent boys.

The article focuses on establishment, development, and uniqueness of Troop 46 of Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and recognizes and appreciates the service and positive attitude of these resilient Boy Scouts and their devoted adult leaders. It mentions thirty boys were of age to participate in the Kalaupapa Scouting program and augmented by those once members of Troop 12. It also mentions confinement of natural borders still required a bit more creativity for full Scouting program.

This article examines the shifting representation of the ideal of masculinity and boys' role in securing the future of the British Empire in Robert Baden-Powell's Boy Scout movement from its inauguration in 1908 to the early years of World War I. In particular, it focuses on early Scout literature's response to anxieties about physical deterioration, exacerbated by the 1904 Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration. In Baden-Powell's Scouting handbook, Scouting for Boys (1908), and in early editions of The Scout--the official magazine of the Scout movement--there was a strong emphasis on an idealized image of the male body, which implicitly prepared Boy Scouts for their future role as soldiers. The reality of war, however, forced Scouting literature to acknowledge the restrictions placed upon boys in wartime and to redefine the parameters of boys' heroic role in defense of the empire accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of adolescents are more sedentary and have fewer formal opportunities to participate in physical activity. With the mounting evidence that sedentary time has a negative impact on cardiometabolic profiles, health related fitness and physical activity, there is a pressing need to find an affordable adolescent physical activity intervention. One possible intervention that has been overlooked in the past is Boy Scouts of America. There are nearly 900,000 adolescent boys who participate in Boy Scouts in the United States. The purpose of this research study was to evaluate the effect of the Personal Fitness merit badge system on physical activity, health-related fitness, and cardio-metabolic blood profiles in Boy Scouts 11-17 years of age. Participants were fourteen (N = 14) Boy Scouts from the Great Salt Lake Council of the Boy Scouts of America who earned their Personal Fitness merit badge. Classes were held in the Spring of 2016 where boys received the information needed to obtain the merit badge and data were collected. Results from the related-samples Wilcoxon signed rank test showed that the median of differences between VO2 peak pre-test and post-test scores were statistically significant (p = 0.004). However, it also showed that the differences between the Pre-MetS (metabolic syndrome) and Post-MetS scores (p = 0.917), average steps taken per day (p = 0.317), and BMI (p = 0.419) were not statistically significant. In conclusion, the merit badge program had a positive impact on cardiovascular endurance, suggesting this program has potential to improve cardiovascular fitness and should be considered for boys participating in Boy Scouts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth development programs represent key tools in the work of youth-serving practitioners and researchers who strive to promote character development and other attributes of youth thriving, particularly among youth who may confront structural and social challenges related to their racial, ethnic, and/or economic backgrounds. This article conducts secondary analyses of two previously reported studies of a relatively recent innovation in Boy Scouts of America (BSA) developed for youth from low-income communities, Scoutreach. Our goal is to provide descriptive and admittedly preliminary exploratory information about whether these data sets-one involving a sample of 266 youth of color from socioeconomically impoverished communities in Philadelphia ( M = 10.54 years, SD = 1.58 years) and the other involving a pilot investigation of 32 youth of color from similar socioeconomic backgrounds in Boston ( M = 9.97 years, SD = 2.46 years)-provide evidence for a link between program participation and a key indicator of positive development; that is, character development. Across the two data sets, quantitative and qualitative evidence suggested the presence of character development among Scoutreach participants. Limitations of both studies are discussed and implications for future longitudinal research are presented. We suggest that future longitudinal research should test the hypothesis that emotional engagement is key to creating the conditions wherein Scoutreach participation is linked to character development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A group of Eagle Scouts protested the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) anti-gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and queer policies and heteronormative citizenship ideals by forfeiting their badges, divesting their membership, and writing personal, emotionally charged letters addressed to the BSA to critique the institution from within. Engaging the correspondence illuminates the repertoires of critique and dissent they employ in their in-house protests. To these ends, this essay makes four primary contributions: it (re)calls attention to the correspondence archive as a fruitful site to investigate political speech acts and forms of dissent; it provides an understanding of the politics of emotions in protest and social change efforts, thus contributing to resonant dialogues in social movement studies; it codifies the Eagle Scouts’ particular tactics employed in their in-house protests, captured in the terms “symbolic divestment” and “recuperative critique”; and it offers a case study that details the rhetorical mechanisms of intrainstitutional change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Brighton Clark "Bugs" Cain was a naturalist who was professionally active in California (USA) during the 1920s to 1940s. Through the Boy Scouts of America, Cain helped popularize entomology with children, some of whom became famed entomologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]