Scouts to review sexual predator files

For the first time in its history, the Boy Scouts of America said it would conduct a comprehensive review of its files on suspected sexual predators. The organization said the action is designed to ensure that all allegations of abuse in the past 47 years have been reported to law enforcement, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. The announcement comes nine days after a Times review of 1,600 files entered into evidence in a court case revealed scout officials failed to report hundreds of incidents of alleged sexual abuse between 1970 and 1991. The Oregon Supreme Court ordered that thousands of pages of so-called "perversion files" be open to public inspection as part of an abuse case by a former Scout leader in Portland. Janet Warren, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, testified on the Boy Scouts' behalf in the Portland case, The New York Times reported. Warren said in the context of scouting's large numbers, youths were safer in the Boy Scouts than in society at large.