truetomharley - "The reason the Witnesses have whatever child abuse records they do is that they sought to investigate this evil in their midst at a time that others did not."
At first, maybe.
But...
...just like in the 90s, when they started investigating the volume and severity of depression and other mental health problems amongst the rank-and-file and didn't like what they found...
...it became something else entirely.
It became an albatross.
They couldn't get rid of it, 'cause they needed the records to try and keep too many sex offenders from administering at the congregation level...
...but...
...with fewer and fewer qualified brothers "reaching out", they had to scrape that barrel bottom more and more...
...and to hide the fact that that was happening (can't let the rank-and-file suspect it's not "God's Earthly Organization", after all), coupled with the fact that their vaunted "Biblical" methods of dealing with the problem were a complete failure (especially compared to the more successful methods "Satan's World" has been using to address it)...
...they felt compelled to keep those records even more secret...
...which fostered an environment where said offenders ended up even more deeply hidden and, arguably, proliferated even further.