A Terrifying Map of Boy Scout Sexual Abuse Allegations

A Terrifying Map of Boy Scout Sexual Abuse Allegations

Boy Scouts released its hidden files on some 5,000 suspected pedophiles last week on a court order, and it's clear from this terrifying map from Los Angeles Times interactive that sexual abuse affected troops across the nation. The Times used the database of 5,000 men and a handful of women who were kicked out of Boy Scouts of America between 1957 and January 2005 for sexual abuse allegations. Each dot represents the location of the troop that was connected to a suspected pedophile. 

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If you go to the Times' site, you can also click on dots and see a list of files related to that location below the map. To the left in the interactive, a graph shows the volume of cases by year. The scariest part? That timeline "shows the volume of cases opened by year; however, an un­known num­ber of files were purged by the Scouts pri­or to the early 1990s."