Sexual Victimization, Disclosure, and Accountability: Organizational Responses of the Boy Scouts of America to Child Sexual Abuse

• In Event: Institutional Offending and Victimization

Abstract

Child sexual abuse has always been a highly publicized and controversial topic due to the vulnerability of children. However, there have been several recent child sexual abuse (CSA) scandals garnering even more attention and concern. With the exposure of the Catholic Church abuse scandal in 2002, public attention became focused on the Archdiocese’s poor and prolonged response. However, this crisis was not the sole case of widespread sexual violence and institutional failure. In October of 2012, Boy Scouts of America files from 1959 to 1991 containing reports of child sexual abuse were released. While there appears to be some research on organizational child sexual, these studies focus primarily on prevention of abuse, and not on organizational responses to abuse. This presentation addresses the factors of both the abuse and the organization that influenced the Boy Scouts of America's response to incidents of child sexual abuse by organization members.

Author

• Michelle Cubellis, John Jay College of Criminal Justice / CUNY Graduate Center