The problem of child sex abuse in Mormonism is magnified by several factors. The community is very tight-knit and insular. Mormons believe that God directly guides their leaders. This leads to mental compartmentalization and slowness to recognize abuse to start with. When it is recognized, there is an extremely strong culture of handling grievances internally through the Priesthood hierarchy. Reports will go to the bishop, not secular authorities. The perspective is a bit skewed to begin with because it is normal and expected for Mormon bishops to ask youth (11 yo and up) explicit questions about their sex lives in private one-on-one "worthiness interviews". The "marching orders" that bishops (the equivalent of priests or pastors) follow (the Church Handbook of Instructions) are primarily designed to protect the church and its reputation. In places where the Mormon church has political power, it can even extend to law. For instance, bishops/clergy are exempted from mandatory reporting in Utah. Bishops are specifically instructed to _not_ report abuse to authorities. Instead they are to "call the hotline" (the Kirton McConkie law firm), where are advised on how to protect the abusers so that the church doesn't incur financial risk or negative publicity. The Mormon church is very centralized and hierarchical compared to many other churches, which means the official policy of cover-up is endemic.
The Mormon Stories (John Dehlin) and Radio Free Mormon podcasts have a lot of documentation of this. The first link below is one of the most important and has a lot of written content as well.
Look into Sam Young, whom the church excommunicated because he campaigned for ending the policy of asking teens and preteens sexually explicit questions in personal worthiness interviews.
https://protectldschildren.org/
https://radiofreemormon.org/2026/03/sam-young-protector-of-m...
Example of how the church deals with victims of abuse:
https://www.mormonstories.org/mormon-sa-jared-ashley-jones/
There is extensive documentation that this is the standard operating procedure:
https://radiofreemormon.org/2025/04/child-abuse-in-the-lds-c...
https://radiofreemormon.org/2023/12/rfm-324-how-the-mormon-c...
https://www.mormonstories.org/matt-long-sex-crimes-prosecuto...
https://radiofreemormon.org/2026/02/lds-church-caught-lying-...
The Mormon church was also intimately involved with Boy Scouts, so basically all of the Boy Scout problems overlapped and combined with the issues above.
https://www.mormonstories.org/boy-scout-abuse-tim-kosnoff/
https://www.mormonstories.org/bsa-bankruptcy-update-with-kos...
