The Boy Scouts did not respond to questions about oversight of the Stoughton Explorer program.
Although the structure of Explorer programs can vary by department, participants are generally required to maintain a grade point average while in school, attend program meetings, and demonstrate good moral character. The curriculum may include community service, firearms training, and evidence collection.
One of the main components of many Explorer programs is the ride, where participants follow officers for hours as they patrol. Each agency has slightly different rules for escorts: Some require time limits or change the officers teens spend time with.
Since at least the 1990s, the Boy Scouts have required a “two-deep” leadership rule, mandating the presence of two adults at all of its programs. The intention was to prevent an adult from being alone with children. But the Boy Scouts created an exception to the “two funds” rule for police escorts in Explorer programs. Explorers are allowed to travel alone with an official — although they must be at least 18 to travel after midnight, according to documents on the Learning for Life website.
“What could go wrong? You know, an adult, without supervision,” said Timothy Kosnoff, a lawyer who has represented thousands of clients, including Explorer participants, suing the Boy Scouts for sexual abuse.
Some departments said their Explorer programs were run by a single precinct or even individual officers. And while several departments have policies that explicitly prohibit fraternization between officers and Explorer participants, other agencies have only made changes after misconduct has occurred.
In a lawsuit filed in 2019, a woman said a police officer abused her when she was a teenager in Connecticut. Her lawyers argued that the Boy Scouts and Learning for Life knew that police departments were not following their policies to prevent sexual abuse.
Advocates for the Boy Scouts responded by calling child sexual abuse a “broad social problem.”
“This abuse can occur anywhere, even in Scouting and Exploration programs,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing. They argued that the organization was not responsible for the abuse she alleged because the officer violated Explorer policies.
The police officer was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
In 2022, the Boy Scouts agreed to settle more than 82,000 people, mostly men, who said they were victims of abuse as minors in Scouting programs. The Scouting organization did not say how many Explorer cases are part of the settlement, which is now worth about $2.5 billion.
Michael Johnson, a former police detective who investigated child abuse, said he became alarmed about sexual abuse in Explorer programs after the Boy Scouts hired him in 2010 as national director of youth protection.
“They have these exploiters walking around at night and the police do a non-existent or poor job of maintaining clear boundaries,” he said.
He said he tried internally to eradicate abuse, especially on night outings, although he was also publicly promoting Scouting during these years.
Johnson said the Boy Scouts fired him in 2020 and he became an outspoken critic of how the organization handled abuse cases.
Explorer’s Allegations abuse did not always result in criminal prosecution. Of the 156 officers identified by the Marshall Project who faced professional or legal consequences related to the allegations against them, at least two-thirds were criminally charged. Among those charged, about half were sentenced to prison terms – from weekends in prison to decades in prison. And at least 20 had to register as sex offenders.
Some allegations involved misconduct that was not criminal behavior – for example, an 18-year-old Explorer in a consensual relationship with an officer – but may have violated departmental policies.
In at least 19 In some cases, officers accused of abuse or inappropriate behavior were reprimanded or suspended but kept their jobs. In other cases, officers renounced their law enforcement certifications in plea deals to avoid criminal charges.
Sometimes it took years for a police officer to face the repercussions.
In 2004, a police sergeant in the small town of Brownwood, Texas, was known for making fellow women and explorers uncomfortable, according to a criminal investigation by the Texas Rangers.
The sergeant “just wanted me to ride in the patrol vehicles with him and not other people and he didn’t like me riding with the other officers,” one victim later told investigators, adding that when she was in high school the officer would discuss the size of his penis with her and send sexually graphic text messages. When she and others tried to report the abuse, the police chief at the time called the accusations unfounded, according to the Rangers’ report.
She told investigators she left the program after the officer followed her into a storage room and groped her. She had to push him out of the way to escape.
Two and a half years later, at the age of 53, the sergeant was arrested for sexually abusing another 15-year-old explorer. He was later convicted of both assaults and is now incarcerated.
Troy Carroll, a Brownwood lieutenant who helped with the investigation, said he supported holding the sergeant accountable and that overall the Explorers were “a great program.”
The city supposedly agreed to a $300,000 settlement with one of the victims in 2010.
In San Bernardino County, California, a sheriff’s deputy faced criminal charges in 2017 related to having sex with a teenage Explorer participant. He ultimately pleaded guilty to a single count of misdemeanor assault and served probation, court records show. Four years later, Authorities were seeking help identifying more of the man’s victims following an allegation that he had sexually abused a young family member for years. He is now serving a decades-long prison sentence for child sexual abuse.
Victims of the Explorer abuse cases said they suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety following the assaults. Some detailed their trauma in court filings and sentencing hearings.
“He took what should have been his best years,” said a young woman told a judge in 2015according to a local news report, before a California police officer was sentenced to 45 days in jail, probation and community service for assaulting her.
No criminal charges were filed in the Birchmore case. The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office began investigating after his death. But a spokesperson said they turned the investigation over to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office last fall. The attorney general’s office declined to comment.
True crime enthusiasts latched onto the circumstances of Birchmore’s death and spread speculation online, leading to podcasts, YouTube videos and Reddit threads. An online petition has more than 2,000 signatures calling for further investigation, and thousands of others have joined the “Justice for Sandra Birchmore” group on Facebook.
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