Scouts Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America

Scouting has been counted among the most trusted institutions in America for more than a century. The documentary opens a file: from the 1920s the organisation kept its own record of volunteers who harmed children and never disclosed it. Internally the records were called the Perversion Files. Documents that emerged in litigation showed more than a hundred thousand victims. Brian Knappenberger directs. It was released on Netflix. The method is to set documents beside testimony. Former scouts describe what happened to them while the organisation's own correspondence is read out, showing year by year what it knew and when. The hardest section is the institution's response. The files were kept and no report was made; men were reassigned to other cities and the organisation chose to protect its reputation. The documentary comes up to the bankruptcy case filed in 2020 and the more than a hundred thousand claims, counted as the largest child abuse case brought against a single institution in American history. Its limit is structure; the narrative piles on information and repeats in places. Who it is for: viewers who follow documentaries about institutional cover up. Who it is not for: the subject is very heavy, the testimony is explicit, and the film provides no relief at any point.