Scout's Honor: Sexual Abuse in America's Most Trusted Institution

by Patrick Boyle

Scout's Honor details decades of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts, one of the country's most respected youth organizations. Drawing on interviews with victims, lawyers, prosecutors, and even convicted molesters, Patrick Boyle paints a distressing but accurate picture of betrayal in a place we all thought was safe. About the Author
Patrick Boyle is a veteran journalist whose reports on child abuse, mental illness, and drug addiction have won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Headliner Awards, the Missouri School of Journalism, and others. He has been a reporter for many newspapers, including the Washington Times , and a freelance reporter for the New York Times , ABC News, Woman's Day , Spy , and the American Journalism Review .

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Crime, True Crime

416 pages, Paperback

First published March 21, 1994

About the author

Boyle was born in 1905 in Ballymoney, Co. Antrim. He worked for the Ulster Bank in Donegal and Wexford. He began writing when he was in his forties. His first collection of short stories, At Night All Cats are Grey, was published in 1966. He also wrote a novel, Like Any Other Man, published in the same year. These two books were followed by two more collections of stories, All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye (1969), and A View from Calvary (1976). He was a member of the Irish Academy of Letters. He died in 1982.

Reviews

[Drac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Key points for anyone who’s looking for a book on this topic and isn’t sure which one to pick:

— no, this book isn’t homophobic; it takes pains to explain the difference between homosexuality and pedophilia, and emphasizes how common it is for a male pedophile to have relationships with adult women while at the same time being attracted to boys. Some of the pedophiles in this book do identify as gay, which is why you see some homophobic reviewers acting like this book is some kind of canceled truth-teller that the Woke don’t want you to know about. Don’t let the dumbasses convince you that this book is actually homophobic; they’re grasping at straws.

— the offenders are treated with compassion, without ever minimizing the impact of abuse on their victims. Several are given the opportunity to explain their thought process and rationalization, and how that rationalization evolved or evaporated as they sought treatment. The book ends on a rather humanitarian note, and a plea for societal change.

— many names are changed, making it difficult at times to independently verify the stories. I’d say about 99% of the book seems well-sourced and trustworthy, but there were two brief moments that raised a red flag: 1) a lengthy segment about a Scouting troop in Louisiana, where neither the abusers nor their victims were quoted. The alleged details of this particular case seemed off to me, especially because this book leaves out certain details that are available in other sources. 2) Boyle cites three infamous Satanic Panic cases without mentioning that they were Satanic Panic cases, and makes it seem as though charges were dropped because the courts weren’t ready to handle child sex abuse. In reality, these three cases (the McMartin preschool trial, the Wee Care Nursery trial, and the Jordan sex scandal) were witch hunts, and that is never acknowledged. However, none of those three cases involved Boy Scouts, so I’m still willing to trust Boyle on his primary focus, and accept that he has little incentive to investigate barely-related cases outside his scope.

Overall I’d strongly recommend the book.

[Jas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought this book would be an attack piece on the Boy Scouts; it is to some extent. But even more important is the descriptions of how pedophiles operate, think, and justify (in their minds) their actions. How they are attracted to youth organizations. The book also describes how society and organizations reacted to revelations in the 50s-80s. Then in the late 1980s, the Boy Scouts changed their view and put in place the strongest Youth Protection training and rules for both leaders and youth. It is a little out of date because it was before the Boy Scouts put in major criminal investigations for both staff and adult volunteers.

Extremely educational for all who work with youth along with the history of how society has changed its attitudes on how to deal with these issues

[Desiree · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly, the people in charge of the Scouts couldn't have been that ignorant, right? Disturbing content (obviously), but written in an easy to read style. Did/Do the Scouts do great things for many people? Probably. Does this all still go on? Probably. I don't know how you would catch it ahead of time 100%, but hopefully there's a better system than there was (yes! there was a "system" to keep this from happening! Ridiculous!).

[Pati Wenzel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little repetitive but has a lot of information. I wanted to read this because my son was a scout in 2016 through 2022 and even though we were at meetings and events during the major case we didn't hear too much about it. This was a real eye opener about abuse in scouting and molestation in general.

[Silvia P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non il "solito" libro di abusi
Questo libro è speciale, perché affronta gli abusi da tre punti di vista: quello delle vittime (giovani maschi), intervistando loro e le loro famiglie; quello della BSA, spiegando come l'Associazione dei Boy Scouts reagiva ad ogni notizia di abuso; quello dei pedofili, riportando il loro punto di vista, le loro parole, i loro vissuti.
E' un libro impegnativo. Le famiglie e i ragazzi rivivono l'avvicinamento a questi uomini che (per un po') sono stati un modello estremamente positivo nelle vite delle loro vittime e delle loro madri. I molestatori raccontano il loro vissuto, come hanno cominciato a preferire i ragazzini alle donne adulte, perché hanno continuato. I padri spiegano perché si sentivano derubati del loro ruolo. E, su tutti, la BSA che si voltava ostinatamente dall'altra parte, non volendo vedere per non ammettere di avere un problema. Un problema grave.
L'autore, Patrick Boyle, appare nel documentario Netflix Boy Scouts of America: le Verità Nascoste, da cui ho appreso l'esistenza di questo libro, che riporta gli abusi tra gli anni 1960-90 circa, con un'aggiunta dei primi 2000. Il documentario aggiorna la situazione.