Having read through the entire redacted police report, I agree that this whole thing has been way overblown. What's worse, it's doing a tremendous amount of harm to the 4 sisters -- almost certainly a lot more than Josh's improprieties did. Not only are they suddenly having their lives disrupted and their income streams slashed, but they've also had their detailed, 9-years-ago interviews with a police investigator sprawled all over the internet. It hardly matters that the names are redacted. These incidents happened in 2002 and 2003, and involved 4 sisters and one young family friend who was sleeping over as a babysitter. Josh only had 5 sisters at that time, and only 4 who were plausibly old enough to remember and describe any of these events.

A normal 14-15 year old boy is developing new and very strong interests in sex and the physical characteristics of girls. When he's prevented from having any normal outlets for flirting/socializing/cuddling with girls, or from having normal friendships with other boys who are enjoying their new experiences flirting/socializing/cuddling with girls, sharing Victoria's Secret catalogs, etc, the repression is bound to burst out in unhealthy, secretive ways.

I'm really revolted by all the howling about what a horrible deviant person Josh is, and how horrible it is that Jim-Bob and Michelle didn't get police involved without being pressured to do so, and didn't send him to some sort of certified therapy for sex offenders. They sent him away for a few months to a program where he had to do a lot of manual labor, apparently with some religious brow-beating and repenting thrown in. Seems to have done the trick, according to the police interviews with his sisters.

This would be a good time for a big public howl about the dangers of imposing extreme sexual repression and restrictions on adolescents and teens, in the name of religious "purity". I seriously think that Jim-Bob and Michelle and hundreds of thousands of other evangelical Christian parents STILL don't get the connection between these parenting/pastoring practices and the sort of behavior that Josh apparently engaged in, and all too often in much, much more serious sexual offenses. They still think "purity balls" are wholesome and good, and that teaching kids to save their first kiss for after marriage is a great idea (especially if combined with ever-present chaperones to make sure they never have a chance to sneak a kiss or a real hug). In fact, most of them probably still think that they need to do more of this sort of thing, to prevent their sons from doing what Josh did!