BARRIERS TO SCOUTING ARE PROTECTION FOR GROOMERS

I believe that our Barriers to Abuse are barriers to good Scouting. Ironically, they also make it harder to detect grooming. Easier for it to go unseen. How? By rules that, being incompatible with good Scouting, are regularly bent or broken, creating an environment of shared secrecy and dishonesty. Groomers are camouflaged by policies that make everyone look suspicious.

Good Scouters Get Expelled

Youth Protection began as a promise. A safeguard. A trust. Shockingly, the policies screen out those who listen. Those who mentor through trust, not distance. Those who remain close to the Scouts.

One of the finest Scouters I’ve ever known. He was seen talking one-on-one with a girl. In the main part of camp. Where people walked. He was kicked out. Friends intervened. Reinstated. Later told a joke that could be interpreted as offensive. There was a Scout in the room. When friends tried to intervene again, he said no. “If this is what Scouting has become, I’m through with it.” He died heartbroken. But grieved and lauded by hundreds who had received his love and guidance.

Groomers get Camouflage

Over time, the policies have morphed into procedural cover. The policies provide loopholes for those who would do good Scouting. But in doing so, they also provide loopholes and camouflage for those who would abuse.

Predators don’t need to break the rules. They need only to perform them. Mandatory reporting becomes box-checking. “Two-deep” becomes proximity theatre as no one expects two leaders to spend all day in view of each other. The phrase “inappropriate conduct” is vague. And those who ask for clarity risk looking guilty. This is not protection. It’s a camouflage system built on reputational choreography.

Three Fears, One System

Scouting now applies a single apparatus to three radically different fears: teen romance, inadvertent mistake, and real abuse. All are breaches of Scout rules that can result in termination. But only the last is illegal.

The rules blur them, treating affection, innocent violations, and predation with almost equal alarm. Scouts and Scouters are afraid of an inadvertent membership-terminating mistake if they appear “too close”. They are afraid of connection. But what is Scouting without connection? The forced distancing undermines friendship and trust.

Some restraint is righteous. A Scout is Clean and A Scout is Reverent call youth toward ethical discipline and modesty. Displays of affection aren’t appropriate at a Scout event. Friendship, not romance. Intimacy of common purpose, not physical.

Scouts are afraid to be friends for fear of misinterpretation. Scouters avoid mentoring to avoid accusations. And predators? They look normal when policies make everyone look suspicious.

Mentoring

Mentoring is historically understood as essential. It’s absolutely required for a BSA troop to function. And it’s one of the best and most effective tools for a Scouter to use in good times and bad. Yet mentoring is a direct violation of the “no one-on-one” Barrier to Abuse.

This was once a pillar of Scouting’s transformative power. An essential part of one of the Methods of Scouting. Early BSA literature, such as the Scoutmaster Handbook, emphasized the value of adult male role models. Not just as supervisors, but as examples of manhood. The adult leader was someone a boy could emulate, confide in, and grow beside. (The same principle obviously applies to the female leadership of today’s girl troops.)

“The Scoutmaster is a friend to the boys, not a boss. He is a guide, not a commander.” — BSA Handbook, mid-century editions

The Shift: From Mentors to Monitors

Today, the “Association with Adults” method is framed in compliance terms:

• “Two-deep leadership”
• “No one-on-one contact”
• “Always in view of others”

These requirements have become the dominant lens through which adult-youth interaction is viewed. The result?

Mentorship is no longer encouraged. It’s discouraged.

Even the official BSA page on mentoring admits: “Mentoring is rarely a critical part of an individual’s role, but rather an extra element….”

That’s a stunning reversal. What was once central is now optional and suspect.

“To get a hold on boys you must be their friend.” — Baden-Powell

The Consequences

• Mentoring moments vanish. A quiet conversation after a tough day? A walk to reflect on a leadership failure? These are now logistically difficult and culturally discouraged.
• Scoutmaster Conferences become theater. Held “in view of others,” but not overheard, forcing both parties to create privacy while pretending the opposite.
• Adults become risk managers, not role models. The safest adult is the one who says the least and stays the farthest away.

And so, mentorship collapses. Not in name, but in practice.

The One-Act Play Every Scouter Knows

It begins almost invisibly. A Scouter notices a Scout who’s floundering. Perhaps on leadership, on judgment, on self-belief. The Scouter gestures. No command. Just motion. The Scout follows.

They don’t hide. They simply drift. Drop back a little or to the side. Far enough to be unheard. Close enough to remain a part of the group.

Everyone plays their part.

• The nearby leaders continue talking.
• Scouts walking past avoid eye contact.
• No one asks what’s being said.

Because they know. It’s the conversation they themselves have had. Or wanted. Or needed.

The Scouter speaks from knowledge, conviction, and care. The youth listens. Maybe stoic, maybe on the verge of tears. It lasts three minutes. Maybe five. The pair splits and returns. No one comments.

The Barriers to Abuse says this moment is forbidden. The rules say it’s dangerous. The handbook warns it could be grooming.

Everyone participates in the outright lie that the conversation was public.

The Scouter realizes, with a chill, that he just put his reputation in jeopardy. He was one-on-one with a kid who was visibly upset. Just like the reaction to an inappropriate suggestion. One of the kids remembers the training he received that suggests he should “stand up” and call it out. But, thankfully, he ignores it because he’s seen it over and over. The other Scouters give it a pass as they have done the same. They all know not to report the small stuff.

The shared lie is a survival strategy. Mentors choreograph safety while needing discretion. Youths open up while pretending they’re just being pulled for a task.

The whole scene is camouflaged. But not for harm. For healing.

In that irony, can you see it? The true barrier to grooming is not rules, it’s relationship. When rules forbid relationship, the camouflage covers the guilty.

This is tough. But we must consider: What if, instead, the Scouter is a pervert? He remarks on how sexy that girl over there looks. Building on prior comments that are sexualizing their relationship. Isn’t it visibly identical to the prior scenario?

The hard reality is this: only the Scout can possibly know. If that Scout is also being mentored by someone else, has someone he trusts, in Scouting or outside, he will talk about it. And the situation will be stopped. Otherwise, probably not. So by discouraging mentoring in Scouting, we are weakening the only real barrier to abuse.

A Scout who is forbidden to speak privately to a trusted adult is not protected. He is silenced.

The only real safeguard is plural mentorship: a culture where youth have multiple guides, where no adult can monopolize trust. Mentoring should be encouraged. The more the better. Scouting without mentoring is not cautious. It is broken.

One Scoutmaster told me in detail how his troop handles Scoutmaster Conferences (for rank advancement) without violating the “no one-on-one between youth and adult” rule. The Scoutmaster sits against a wall. The Scout sits facing him, with a low wall and counter at his back. Behind him are troop committee members. The pretense is that committee members can see the Scoutmaster and hear his voice, but cannot see or hear the youth. This absurdity does not actually give the Scout a true mentoring experience where he feels free to talk. This compliance theater would be laughable if it was not so tragic. The theatrics will protect the Scoutmaster’s reputation. But it distroys the intent of the conference.

I shutter to think how little other mentoring takes place in that troop. There is a mine field between the adults and the youth.

BOTTOM LINE A Scout approaches you hesitantly, uncertain. Obviously disturbed. Asks to speak to you privately, Do you tell him that you can’t do that?

The solution is simple. National needs to clearly state that one-on-one conversations are permitted, even if no one else can hear, as long as others can see you. And that mentoring is encouraged, not discouraged. This general suppression of mentoring has to stop.

Trust

“A Scout is Trustworthy. A Scout’s Honor is to be trusted. If he were to violate his honor … he may be directed to hand over his Scout badge.” — Early Handbook for Boys.

Three sentences. We have abandoned the last two. (2) The Scout must experience our certainty that he can be trusted. (3) Trust is the rule that defines a Scout.

Modern policy starts with doubt. The opposite of trust. It presumes risk, not character. It whispers: Do not trust. Do not be alone. Do not believe that Scouts or Scouters are safe.

The Scout came to me ready to work on the Merit Badge. “I have pictures,” he said. “Proof I did the prerequisite. ” He held up his phone. Eager. Proud.

“Tell me about it,” I said. He did, walking through the process, the effort, the result. Then he waited for me to inspect the image.

“I don’t need it,” I said. “A Scout is Trustworthy. You are a Scout. I trust that you did it.”

He looked stunned. Then quiet. Then a kind of contentment. I could see it settle. His word matters.

Trust is not just a value. It’s the first condition of growth. To be trusted is to be seen, to be held to account, and to be believed capable of integrity. The Scout who is never trusted will never learn to be trustworthy.

“It is risky to order a boy not to do something; it immediately opens to him the adventure of doing it.” — Baden-Powell

When rules say he cannot walk alone, we are telling him that the world is unsafe. Worse, that he is a fundamentally bad person, a danger to others. When rules say no adult may speak with him in private, we are saying his mentors are threats. When rule-breaking becomes routine, it proclaims that honor is flexible. That violation is normal. That truth is a problem to avoid, not a virtue to uphold.

“Correcting bad habits cannot be done by forbidding or punishment.” — Baden-Powell

The camp has wifi, but only for staff. A Scout, while talking with the health officer, mentioned that he has wifi. Officer asked him, “How? You aren’t supposed to have the password.” He replied “So what?” “You should have respect.“ “What are they going to do, kick me out of Scouts?“

This is not Youth Protection. This is Trust Collapse by Policy. And its consequence is silent, systemic, and devastating. It replaces moral instruction with legal insulation. It replaces honor with optics. Trust with fear.