Over 12,000 Boy Scouts Were Victims Of Sexual Abuse: Report

New numbers released Tuesday from court testimony show that as many as 12,000 Boy Scouts were victims of sexual abuse.

Attorney Jeff Anderson, whose firm Jeff Anderson and Associates often represents victims of sexual abuse, held a press conference Tuesday to publicly release the numbers as a first step to combat and punish abusers.

Dr. Janet Warren was among a group of experts brought in to evaluate the organization’s handling of sexual abuse from 1944 to 2016. Warren, who is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, testified that she has been working for the Boy Scouts on a "private contract" since 2013.

She had originally testified on the matter during a January court appearance, revealing that she and her team had been combing through the Boy Scouts’ ineligible volunteer files. Her team came to the conclusion there were "7,819 perpetrators who they believe were involved in sexually abusing a child." She also said the team "identified 12,254 victims" from these files.

Anderson pointed out that 130 of the abusers resided in New York, which recently passed the Child Victims Act. The act allows sexual abuse claims to be brought forward from any period of time despite existing statues, which in New York is a one-year period.

While this isn’t the first time the Boy Scouts has had to address abuse within the organization, the number represents a significant jump. There were 14,000 document pages released in 2012 that detailed abuse by over a thousand scout leaders in an Oregon case. The Los Angeles Times in 2012 created its own database that detailed 5,000 men and women expelled from the Boy Scouts for accusations of abuse.

Anderson and other vocal critics are now pushing for the Boy Scouts to make the full list public. Several were already released as part of Anderson’s report and have been reported to law enforcement but Anderson doesn’t feel it’s enough.

"The Boy Scouts of America have never actually released these names in any form that can be known to the public ... they never alerted the community that this teacher, this coach, this scout leader ... is known to be a child molester," Anderson said.

The Boy Scouts of America didn't respond to Anderson's claims but did issue a statement.

"We care deeply about all victims of child abuse and sincerely apologize to anyone who was harmed during their time in Scouting. We believe victims, we support them, and we have paid for unlimited counseling by a provider of their choice. Nothing is more important than the safety and protection of children in Scouting and we are outraged that there have been times when individuals took advantage of our programs to abuse innocent children."