This database contains information on about 5,000 men and a handful of women who were expelled from the Boy Scouts of America between 1947 and January 2005 on suspicion of sexual abuse. The dots on the map indicate the location of troops connected in some way to the accused. The timeline below shows the volume of cases opened by year; however, an unknown number of files were purged by the Scouts prior to the early 1990s. The data are derived from confidential Scouting files submitted as evidence in court cases.
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Last update: Jan. 3, 2013
There are three main sources for the database: about 1,900 files from 1970 to 1991 produced as evidence in a 1992 California lawsuit; about 1,200 case files from an overlapping time period — 1965 to 1985 — released on order of the Oregon Supreme Court; and summary data on about 3,100 additional files from 1947 to January 2005. Both the case summaries and the 1970-to-1991 files were provided to the Los Angeles Times by plaintiffs’ attorney Timothy Kosnoff. Taken together, the database accounts for all of the Boy Scouts’ surviving files as of January 2005. An unknown number of files were destroyed by the Boy Scouts between the 1970s and the 1990s, and an unknown number of additional cases have been created since 2005.
Under “Document,” The Times has posted links to redacted case files where they are available. In cases marked “Pending,” the document is still being redacted and will be posted soon. In cases marked “Not available,” the document has not been released publicly by the Boy Scouts of America.
In many of the incidents described, no criminal charges were filed, meaning the allegations were never heard in court. Case files released by the court have victims’ names and identifying information redacted, a standard also used by The Times.