PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The Boy Scouts of America plan to begin bringing suspected abusers to the attention of police departments and sheriff's offices across the country.
The abusers are named in the organization's so-called perversion files.
The Scouts have until now argued they did all they could to prevent sex abuse within their ranks. They have spent a century tracking pedophiles and using those records to keep known sex offenders out of their organization.
But a court-ordered release of the perversion files from 1965 to 1985 is expected sometime this month. That has prompted Scouts spokesman Deron Smith to say the organization will go back into the files and report any offenders who may have fallen through the cracks.
Smith said Mike Johnson, the group's youth protection director and a former police detective, will lead the review.
