articles:
- Boy Scouts helped alleged molesters cover tracks, files show
- A paper trail of abuse
- Urgent Update from the International Common Law Court of Justice
- Social Interaction in Early Life Affects Wiring to the Frontal Lobes
Boy Scouts helped alleged molesters cover tracks, files show
When volunteers and employees were suspected of sexually abusing children, Boy Scout officials often didn’t tell police, files from 1970-91 reveal. In many cases they sought to hide the situation.
By Kim Christensen and Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times
September 16, 2012
Over two decades, the Boy Scouts of America failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public.
A Los Angeles Times review of 1,600 confidential files dating from 1970 to 1991 has found that Scouting officials frequently urged admitted offenders to quietly resign — and helped many cover their tracks.
Volunteers and employees suspected of abuse were allowed to leave citing bogus reasons such as business demands, “chronic brain dysfunction” and duties at a Shakespeare festival.
As The Times reported in August, the blacklist often didn’t work: Men expelled for alleged abuses slipped back into the program, only to be accused of molesting again. Now, a more extensive review has shown that Scouts sometimes abetted molesters by keeping allegations under wraps.
In the majority of cases, the Scouts learned of alleged abuse after it had been reported to authorities. But in more than 500 instances, the Scouts learned about it from boys, parents, staff members or anonymous tips.
In about 400 of those cases — 80% — there is no record of Scouting officials reporting the allegations to police. In more than 100 of the cases, officials actively sought to conceal the alleged abuse or allowed the suspects to hide it, The Times found.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-boy-scouts-files-20120916,0,6937684.story
A paper trail of abuse
Since at least 1919, the Boy Scouts of America has maintained “ineligible volunteer” files intended to keep sexual abusers, among others, out of its ranks. The records have been closely held by the Scouts, which contends that confidentiality is essential to protect victims, witnesses and anyone falsely accused.
The Times reviewed about 1,600 of the files dating from 1970 to 1991. In hundreds of cases, sexual abuse was not reported to law enforcement, and Scout officials at times actively hid it from parents and the public. In at least 50 cases, the Boy Scouts expelled men for alleged sexual abuse, only to discover later that they had reentered the Scouts and were again accused of molesting.
Here are files from some of those cases. The Times has redacted victims’ names and other identifying information. Some files include explicit accounts of sexual abuse.
http://documents.latimes.com/boy-scouts-paper-trail-of-abuse-documents/
This is an update from Kevin Annett dated September 17, 2012, and is the official issuing of the public summons to church and state officials.
Filmed at Freedom Central HQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wTSPVJzT5w&feature=youtu.be
Urgent Update from the International Common Law Court of Justice
Posted on September 17, 2012 by itccs
This is September 17, 2012, and I’m Kevin Annett with the International Common Law Court of Justice.
Today, the Prosecutor’s Office of our Court is issuing Public Summonses to thirty two officials of church and state around the world, charging them with criminal offenses and summoning them to appear in our court. This Summons and the names and positions of these officials will be read today so that the world is able to follow these historic proceedings.
This Summons has particular force right now because of the refusal of the named churches and persons to respond this week to ten measures of justice demanded of them by their victims – and by a consequential Banishment Proclamation that has been issued against these churches by organizations of abuse survivors around the world.
http://itccs.org/2012/09/17/urgent-update-from-the-international-common-law-court-of-justice/
Social Interaction in Early Life Affects Wiring to the Frontal Lobes
09/13/2012 Dr. Douglas Fields – Neurobiologist and author, ‘The Other Brain’ GET UPDATES FROM Dr. Douglas Fields
A study published in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Science shows that social interaction during a critical period of early life has irreversible effects on maturation of connections to the frontal lobes of the brain, disrupting social interactions and cognitive ability into adulthood. Children suffering severe neglect are known to have cognitive dysfunctions and impairments in social interaction as adults, but the mechanisms were not understood.
Situated behind the forehead, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for complex analysis, abstract thought, motivation, and controlling socially correct behaviors. Interestingly, connections from other brain regions to the prefrontal cortex are not fully developed until the early 20s. A team led by neurobiologist Gabriel Corfas at the Children’s Hospital in Boston reared mice in isolated cages for two weeks after they were weaned from their mothers. When these animals reached adulthood, the nerve fibers (axons) connecting to the prefrontal cortex had a thinner coating of electrical insulation (myelin) than in mice reared in standard cages. Myelin insulation, wrapped around axons like electrical tape, greatly increases the transmission speed of nerve impulses. Slower transmission of information to the frontal cortex could degrade performance of this critical brain region. Indeed, behavioral experiments showed that these animals had poor working memory and impaired social interaction as adults….
“The findings make sense and are consistent with what we’ve observed in clinical studies on effects of early stress on the brain,” says Martin Teicher, a neuroscientist in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard University. Using MRI brain imaging, Teicher and his colleagues have found that early life stresses, including childhood sexual abuse, witnessing domestic violence, and experiencing verbal abuse from parents or peers, affect the structure of the prefrontal cortex and disrupt fiber connections (called white matter) to this and other brain regions. This new study is a major advance, Teicher says, because human brain imaging can only provide correlations, but animal experiments can demonstrate causation and help identify the underlying mechanisms.
Many alterations in brain tissue could produce the differences seen by MRI in children suffering neglect, but by removing the tissue and examining it under an electron microscope, Corfas and colleagues were able to prove that indeed myelin was thinner on these axons in socially isolated mice. What’s more, they were able to identify the cellular and molecular mechanism responsible for the thinner myelin and then manipulate them to test whether thinner myelin was sufficient to cause the behavioral effects seen after isolation….
Corfas notes that white matter disruptions in this brain region have been related to schizophrenia, and variations in the gene for the neuregulin-1 receptor are also associated with the disorder. Mutation in this gene is not enough to cause disease, but Corfas speculates that an interaction between variants of this gene and environmental stresses could contribute to schizophrenia and to other neuropsychiatric disorders such as PTSD, depression, or anxiety disorders. “We are not saying that isolation is producing schizophrenia,” he says. “Rather that people with alterations in the neuregulin genes could be more sensitive to environmental stresses that could cause defects in myelination and contribute to neuropsychiatric disorders.” Regardless, even in individuals with no genetic problems, connections to the frontal lobes will not develop normally without social interaction in early life.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-douglas-fields/social-interaction-early-life-frontal-lobes_b_1864234.html
