Sexual Abuse within the Boy Scouts of America

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Over 92,000 claims of sexual abuse against the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) were filed in Bankruptcy court by the November 16th, 2020 deadline. The scope of these alleged cases of sexual abuse is astounding and far surpasses the number of claims made against the Catholic Church. While researchers are still studying the available files, there is evidence that much of the abuse involved sexual grooming. Sexual grooming is the deceptive process by which a would-be abuser, prior to the commission of sexual abuse, selects a victim, gains access to and isolates the minor, develops trust with the minor, and often other adults in the minor’s life, and desensitizes the minor to sexual content and physical contact. Post-abuse, the offender may engage in maintenance strategies to facilitate future sexual abuse and/or prevent disclosure.

Given that six out of 10 children who experience sexual abuse are abused by someone who is known to them but who is not a family member, it is suspected that many individuals became affiliated with child-serving organizations such as BSA to get more access to children. Furthermore, given that activities such as overnight camping trips and excursions are central to scouting, those who engaged in the abuse had opportunities to abuse the youth more easily without parental detection. It is also important to note that many of these sexual grooming behaviors are subtle and can be difficult to detect until after the abuse is perpetrated.

This has several implications for policy and prevention:

1. All youth-serving organizations must develop policies and procedures to protect youth from predators who are seeking to abuse children through their institutional affiliation.
2. Parents and youth must learn about the tactics and behaviors used by abusers to groom victims so that they will be able to identify them and stop the abuse before it can occur.
3. While the cases of reported abuse in the BSA and Catholic Church involve male perpetrators, there is some evidence that women can also engage in sexual abuse and sexual grooming, and some of the recent cases of educator sexual abuse and sex trafficking may involve female perpetrators.
4. Individuals who have experienced sexual grooming may have negative long-term psychological consequences such as trauma symptoms, guilt, shame, depression, anxiety, and problems with sexual relationships. Thus, counselors should be familiar with the dynamics of sexual grooming and how it should be addressed in treatment.

The numbers of claims emerging against the BSA highlight how prevalent a problem childhood sexual abuse is. It also further underscores the importance of developing prevention policies and strategies that can be applied on an individual, familial, community, and organizational level to prevent sexual abuse.