Monica Paul with her kids.

TRENTON — Citing the case of a man accused of gunning down his former girlfriend in front of their young daughter at a northern New Jersey YMCA, four state lawmakers are pushing legislation to provide more protections for domestic violence victims and their children.

The measure, known as “Monica’s Law,” would create a pilot program in Essex and Passaic counties. It would provide for risk assessments conducted before visitation rights are awarded and would apply in all cases where a final domestic violence restraining order has been issued and the victim and the accused have a child together.

“The issues surrounding domestic violence are complex and each case is unique,” said Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein of Hamilton (Mercer County), one of the bill’s primary sponsors. “Conducting risk assessments when children’s visitation and custody is involved will help keep victims and their families safe.”

The risk assessments — performed by an expert designated by a judge handling the case — would examine the likelihood that the person against whom the final restraining order is issued will commit violence against the victim or their child. But the assessments would only be ordered in certain cases, such as those in which the accused has a history of violence, threatened to kill the victim or their child, or allegedly used or threatened to use a weapon against them.

Under the pilot program, people filing domestic violence complaints would have to complete a questionnaire that would include information on:

• Whether they and the accused have any children together.

• Whether the accused has ever used or threatened to use a weapon.

• Whether the accused has ever made specific threats of violence against the victim or their children.

The measure is named for Monica Paul, who was 31 when she was fatally shot in June 2008. Prosecutors say her former boyfriend, Kenneth Duckett of Orange, burst into a waiting room at the Montclair YMCA and fired several shots at her in front of their 11-year-old daughter. Their 4-year-old son was swimming nearby.

One-size-fits-all approach to child custody dangerous for mum, child

Published: Tuesday, Jul 27, 2010, 17:56 IST

Place: Washington, DC | Agency: ANI

Child custody evaluators should know how to differentiate between types of violence – because a one-size-fits-all approach to custody can endanger both mums and kids, according to new American research.

The University of Illinois study reveals that evaluator’s beliefs generally fall into two categories, and one group is far more likely to prioritise safety for women and children when making custody decisions.

“Some evaluators see conflict as a natural part of relationships. When domestic violence occurs, they reason that it takes two to tango. When a couple’s relationship is over, these evaluators see no reason the mom and dad can’t co-parent safely, especially if they’ve both attended court-ordered anger management classes,” said Jennifer Hardesty, a U of I associate professor of human and community development.

“The other group believes that anger management classes work for some couples, but they also know that violence can be used to control and terrorize women, and that children may be used as pawns in the relationship or as weapons against the mother. In such cases, these evaluators carefully craft custody arrangements that will keep the mother and children safe,” said doctoral student Megan Haselschwerdt who worked with Hardesty on the study.

The researchers would like to see standardized and mandated training that would teach custody evaluators how to discriminate between types of violence because different kinds of violence require different interventions.

“Unfortunately, many courts are applying a one-size-fits-all model to custody cases. It’s important to err on the side of safety. Safety precautions can be relaxed if it turns out that there’s not as much of a risk as was thought. That’s better than just assuming that there’s no risk,” Haselschwerdt said.

In the study, 23 custody evaluators participated in in-depth interviews, answering open-ended questions about their beliefs and how they made decisions.

Members of the “it takes two to tango” school said that most of their cases involved situational violence or arguments that turned physical because couples were unable to manage their conflicts properly-for example, a heated conflict about finances that ended with a shove.

These custody evaluators acknowledged that extreme cases of battering exist but said they almost never saw them.

But Hardesty disagrees.

She said: “These evaluators described situations that clearly went beyond situational violence, but they were convinced that was all they were seeing.

“In fact, speaking up for her safety can backfire on a woman if an evaluator decides she is trying to alienate the father from his children by making exaggerated claims. The evaluator may then compensate by prioritizing the father’s custody rights.”

The more prevalent type of domestic violence is situational violence, which probably occurs in approximately 60 percent of the evaluators’ cases.

In at least another 30 percent of cases, described by scholars as intimate terrorism, one partner attempts to control the other through threats of violence and a willingness to follow up on them.

“Usually there are multiple forms of control-not allowing the partner to make any financial decisions, threatening to take the children away if the abuser’s demands aren’t met, emotional abuse, name calling, degrading or humiliating the other person-anything that would terrorize someone or make them feel less human,” Haselschwerdt said.

“Attempts to control could involve keeping a log of how far a partner has driven or checking their cell phone and where they’re going on the Internet. These sorts of monitoring behaviours become dangerous when they’re followed up with threats of violence,” she said.

Hardesty added: “There are many models and templates for suggested ways to do these evaluations. They tell evaluators what kind of information they need, how many people they should talk to, and how much time they should devote to an evaluation, but there are no legal requirements for how they should actually be done.”

To read the original study “Custody Evaluators’ Beliefs About Domestic Violence During Divorce: Feminist and Family Violence Perspectives” by Megan L. Haselschwerdt, Jennifer L. Hardesty, and Jason D. Hans, please click here.

Massachusetts Can’t Look at DCF Files in Child Custody Cases

In the family court arena, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) has been helpful to some and an obstruction/destruction to others. Where mothers have reported suspected or actual abuse by the father, sometimes DCF comes in an substantiates the abuse and therefore provides evidence to the court that the mother may not have had or been able to obtain on her own. Sometimes it isn’t the mother who reports the abuse, but the school system or other mandated reported, or possibly an anonymous reporter.

If the mother does NOT report it, sometimes it is best because DCF has been infiltrated and trained by folks (like Dr. Amy J. Baker) who harbor ideas and theories that promote mothers being blamed for their own actions, or lack of actions, or actions of her children (Read Failing to Report and Reporting to Fail and The System Sends Mixed Messages to Victims). Cases in which DCF has marked as unsubstantiated have been purposefully confused by fathers and their attorneys as evidence of lack of abuse or even fraud on the part of the mother. This is where the theory of parental alienation makes its entry.

In the State of Florida, DCF has continuously proven not only its ineptitude, but its sheer dangerousness in failing to protect victims of family violence. Family violence and homicide is an an all time high in this state with DCF cases taking the credit in many of the top murder-suicides.

So is DCF a friend, or a foe? And is what is happening in Massachusetts helpful, or harmful?

A brief background on Massachusetts–fathers label it as the most unfriendly father-in-family-court state. Fathers groups have been lobbying hard to get things changed–talking to the governor and congresspersons and making deals. And so a Mass court has decided that as far as child custody and visitation is concerned, judges are no longer allowed to secure information from DCF because the information is incomplete, and also because the parent(s) do not know what information is being passed. You decide who this benefits or harms:

Court ruling regarding child-custody cases in Massachusetts hailed as victory for parents

Buffy Spencer, The Republican

SPRINGFIELD – A recent decision by the state’s highest court in a case which challenged practices used in child-custody cases in Hampden Probate Court is a victory for parents, says an administrator of a regional legal services agency.

The state Supreme Judicial Court ruled that certain practices (“protocols”) relied upon by family court judges in Hampden Probate Court in child-related cases, such as those involving temporary visitation and custody, violated the due process rights of parents in those cases, according to Colleen Sullivan, managing attorney for Western Massachusetts Legal Services.

In 2006, Western Massachusetts Legal Services brought a lawsuit challenging the protocols which permitted judges to gather information in cases where there was state Department of Children and Families involvement. The practices included having court personnel simply call the state agency and get an oral summary of information in a file, without the parents’ knowledge of what information was being transmitted, Sullivan said.

The practice allowed for the possibility of incomplete, inaccurate or unreliable information being given to the judge, who would then rely in part on such information to make decisions on issues such as temporary visitation, guardianship or custody, she said.

Sullivan said Western Massachusetts Legal Services has always recognized that Probate Court judges grapple with very difficult issues and are guided by the best interests of the child.

But Western Massachusetts Legal Services also recognized that the protocols left room for serious errors in important decisions about family life, she said.

The Supreme Court acknowledged the difficulties that judges face in making such determinations, but found that the constitutional due process protections of parents here to have only complete, reliable and accurate information be considered by judges is paramount, Sullivan said.

The court ruled that “in the interests of justice, we exercise our broad discretion” to review the current protocols, and concluded that their use violates the due process rights of affected litigants.

The protocols can no longer be used, but the Probate Court can draft new ones that the Supreme Judicial Court’s Rules Committee will review.

Also Read: Family Court System PURPOSEFULLY Masks the Abused and the Abusers

Hi All

I’ve just been contacted by a producer at a major media outlet who is looking to do a story on moms who have lost custody to anabuser who was rich and/or well-connected and/or powerful.   (Perhaps he was a cop, a lawyer, a judge, a psychiatrist, a corporate exec, etc.)

At a minimum the story will be published online on a site w/high visibility to women.  Possibly leading to  placement on morning news program or other court related TV programming.  The journalist is willing to do interviews in shadow and/or use pseudonyms to protect identify if needed.

Tight deadline- need by today if possible, Friday if necessary.

Please contact me at iw@stopfamilyviolence.org with the following info:

First Name (required)

Last Name (optional)

Phone

Email

BRIEF  (approx 500 words) description of your situation that includes the following

How long you were together

His position of privilege/power – was he a cop? A judge?  A corporate exec? Etc..

1-3 examples of how he abused you or your children

Summary of what happened when you went to court  – how much money you/he spent, whether you/he had attorneys, any egregious thing that happened by the judge, the evaluator, etc.

The outcome -  who has custody now?  What is your life like?

Please keep the above scenario as brief as possible -

Irene Weiser

StopFamilyViolence.org

331 W. 57th St #518

New York, NY 10019

607-539-6856

iw@stopfamilyviolence.org

There’s Nothing Friendly About Abuse

Children are at risk when custody cases rely on a meritless theory of parental “alienation”

by R. Dianne Bartlow

It’s a statistic so unbelievable that it’s difficult to wrap your head around: A research review by lawyer and domestic violence expert Joan Zorza found that in about half of the 100,000 contested child custody cases each year in the United States, custody goes to the father – even though at least one-third of these fathers reportedly committed domestic violence against the mother or the child.  In fact, women are actually more likely to win custody if they do not allege abuse.

The force behind these rulings are the innocuous-sounding “friendly parent” statutes on the books in at least 32 states, which mandate that courts, in deciding custody, consider how willing each parent is to facilitate a “close and continuing” relationship between the child and the other parent.  This is one factor in determining what custody arrangements are “in the best interests of the child.”

“Friendly parent” statutes are a dressed-down form of a theory called Parental Alienation Syndrome.  PAS theorizes that most accusations of child abuse (especially sexual abuse) made during a custody battle are actually fraudulent.  Not only are the charges false, says the theory, but they are deliberately undertaken by one parent (in most cases, the mother) to “alienate” the child from the other parent (generally, the father).

Never mind that the American Psychological Association has said PAS has no valid merit, nor that PAS inventor Richard Gardner has also said that society “overreacts” to sexual abuse and that pedophilia is an honorable lifestyle choice.  PAS lives on in “friendly parent” statutes and in the testimony of many court-appointed evaluators and mental-health professionals.  Those who diagnose PAS often recommend that full custody go to the “alienated parent” (usually the biological father) and that unsupervised visitation with the “alienating parent” (usually the mother) be cut off.

Ultimately, these outmoded ideas maintain their grip because of a long-standing tradition of discrediting women’s concerns and believability in comparison to men’s, wrote Zorza in Domestic Violence, Abuse and Child Custody (Civic Research Institute, 2010).  Their effect is to lend powerful leverage to abusers.

“Severely abusive fathers may deliberately escalate their abuse to force the woman to complain, flee, or bargain away valuable marital assets, alimony or child support.  They then retaliate by filing for custody, knowing they will likely be able to deprive the mothers of the children,” writes Zorza.  “Other abusive fathers use the “friendly parent” concept to force the mother to pay them child support and to deprive her of any visitation.”

The consequences can be dire.  According to the Center for Judicial Excellence, a court advocacy organization, an estimated 75 children nationwide were murdered between June 2009 and April 2010 by abusive fathers who won custody battles.

Currently, about half of the states in the U.S. have laws requiring courts to consider domestic violence on an equal basis with factors such as “friendly parent” statutes when making custody determinations.  But family courts have wide discretion in how heavily to weigh domestic violence.  The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the American Bar Association recommend that abuse be given more consideration than other factors in custody cases – and that courts withhold sole or joint custody from anyone with a history of domestic violence.

It’s high time for parents and the public to know what’s going on in these situations, says Barry Goldstein, co-editor of Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody: “I believe that if the public was aware of the frequency in which courts make fundamental mistakes and send children to live with abusers, the practice would quickly end because it would not be tolerated.”

R.Dianne Bartlow, PH.D., is associate professor of gender and women’s studies at California State University, Northridge.

Motherly love ‘does breed confidence’

A responsive mum will know when to soothe her baby

Being lavished with affection by your mum as a young child makes you better able to cope with the stresses and strains of adult life, say researchers.

Hugs, kisses and expressive declarations of love appear to rub off and foster emotional resilience.

The results are from nearly 500 people, from the US state of Rhode Island, who were studied as children and adults.

A secure mother-child bond may be key, the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reports.

But experts say it is important to know when to stop. Over-mothering can be intrusive and embarrassing, especially as children grow older.

Maternal warmth

High levels of motherly affection are likely to facilitate secure attachments and bonding, say the study authors, led by Dr Joanna Maselko.

This not only lowers distress but may also help a child to develop effective life, social, and coping skills, which will stand them in good stead as adults.

In the study, a psychologist rated the quality of interactions between the mothers and their eight-month-old children during a routine developmental check-up.

The psychologist judged how well the mother responded to her child’s emotions and needs, and gave her an “affection score” based on the warmth of the interaction.

Thirty years later, the researchers approached the children, who were now adults, and asked them to take part in a survey about their well-being and emotions.

The group was also asked whether they thought their mothers had been affectionate towards them, with responses ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”.

The results revealed that children whose mothers gave them lots of affection handled all types of distress better.

In particular, the children of warm mothers were far better at dealing with anxiety than those of emotionally cold mothers.

The researchers said: “It is striking that a brief observation of level of maternal warmth in infancy is associated with distress in adult offspring 30 years later.”

They said the findings added to the growing evidence that early childhood helped set the stage for later life experiences, but said the influence of other factors, such as personality, upbringing and schooling, could not be ruled out.

Dr Terri Apter, a psychologist, writer and senior tutor at Newnham College, Cambridge, has studied the effects of mother-child relationships.

“What you really want is responsiveness as well as affection – a mother who is in sync with her baby,” she said.

“Babies are not born knowing how to regulate their emotions. They learn by being distressed and being soothed.

“And a responsive mum will pick up on cues that a child has had enough.”

A responsive mum will know not only when to give cuddles but also when to stop.

“If she is being responsive she will say: ‘You are a big 12-year-old and I guess it is embarrassing if I kiss and squeeze you like I did when you were a baby’. And she won’t make you feel bad about it,” added Dr Apter.

But instead, they use this to garner funds from fathers hurting from court battles (excerpt from F&F’s mailing today):

The defeat of AB 612 is a victory for the family court reform movement and for children everywhere. Victories cost money, as does our deep, professional involvement inside the political system—please support our successful work by making a tax-deductible contribution by clicking here.

This is the second time in two months that Fathers & Families has been instrumental in defeating a Center for Judicial Excellence bill—in June, we helped kill AB 2475, which was also related to Parental Alienation. To learn more, see F & F Helps Defeat Radical Bill from Opponents of Recognizing Parental Alienation.

Whereas Fathers and Families’ family court reform bills have been moving swiftly through the California legislature, the Center for Judicial Excellence is now 0-2 in the 2009-2010 legislative session.

The CJE claims that there’s a “crisis” in family courts, and that courts are handing over custody of children to physically and sexually abusive fathers. They promote reforms which will make it easier to deny parents shared custody or visitation rights based on unsubstantiated abuse claims. As we’ve noted before, there is no empirical basis supporting this claim. The vast majority of the cases that groups like the CJE put forward as alleged examples of this “crisis” of abusive fathers winning child custody are being badly misrepresented–to learn more, click here.

I can tell you there are many mothers that lose their children to abusive fathers.  I hear from them all the time.

I am a double dipper here. My father, who used to frequently abuse my mother in front of my siblings and myself, and sometimes the neighbors, gained custody of us kids.  Once Dad got tired of taking care of us, not even a year later, we ended up all split apart, in a series of foster homes and group homes, trying to keep us out of reach of our mother.  He was successful for years.  I can attest to the fact that it destroyed our childhoods.  Now my own children are in this situation.

I’ll be getting out a list of these California legislators that insist junk science (such as William Bernet’s so-called “Parental Alienation Disorder” that will become a financial boom for the family law industry if incorporated into the DSM-V) be used in the courts, and that unethical, biased psychologists are protected.  These people need to be run out of office.

Denying that mothers are being faced with this in court is wrong, and is probably related to the increased murder-suicide rate currently predominantly from fathers as seen here and here.  The madness has got to stop before we lose a whole generation of children to violence.

American PBS Documentary “Breaking The Silence The Children’s Stories”

What Breaking the Silence Means

By Dominique Lasseur

Documentary film producer Dominique Lasseur set out to explore the failures of the family court system in “Breaking the Silence: Children’s Stories.” But when public television broadcast the program in the fall of 2005, the father’s rights movement was quick to react with scathing criticism and a deluge of viewer complaints.

What compelled you to take on this issue?

We didn’t set out to produce a piece about custody issues. We had planned to make a documentary about the impact of domestic violence on children. We really wanted to show stories of what was being done to help children who were raised in domestic violence environments.

What we found was one story after another of protective mothers having their children taken away from them and given in sole or partial custody to the very man who terrorized the mother and the children. It was so outrageous, that when we heard the first stories we thought they were aberrations, but then we found that this was in fact happening often and everywhere. We knew at that point that this was the story to concentrate on.

When did you become convinced that there was a systemic problem within the family court system?

I met a woman in New Jersey and I spent an afternoon listening to her story. She had been divorced for two to three years and had lost custody of her kids. Her ex-husband was making her life a total prison by dragging her into court every month. She was a professional, intelligent woman, and I thought this can’t be happening. This is clearly a horrible story, but it has to be one case in a million.

But looking further we found the same story everywhere, in Florida, New Orleans, Ohio, California, etc. I spoke with dozens of women who were very candid about what they had endured. After listening to one story after another, there was no way to ignore the extent of the problem.

We chose to feature the stories where there were extensive court proceedings so that we could verify that what the women was telling us was what she had testified in court as well. So there was a clear history of allegations of domestic violence and/or child physical or psychological abuse. All the women we interviewed went to court believing the system was fair, not thinking for a moment their kids could be taken from them.

It seems that we are now on this issue where we were 20-25 years ago on domestic violence. I would assume that it was as difficult at that time to talk about domestic violence, as it is to talk about this particular issue now. People don’t want to believe it. They don’t want to know about it. To tell you the truth, many in my interviews I said to the woman I was interviewing, “It would be easier to believe that you were fabricating all this because what you’re telling me is so horrendous. It feels like you’re telling me a story about some remote country where there is no notion of justice.” And the fact that it’s happening here in America was unbelievable, is unbelievable.

In your opinion what is the underlying problem?

In my view, the problem is that while criminal courts have made tremendous progress in dealing with domestic violence, family courts are not as informed about the dynamics of family violence.

Why hasn’t the family court system progressed in the same way as the criminal court system?

On the record family court judges say to women, “You’re an intelligent, professional woman, so I don’t believe you’ve been abused.” You would not hear a judge in criminal court say that because people know that domestic violence is not just happening in inner city, poor neighborhoods. That’s one example.

The other example is people who are aware of the dynamic of domestic violence know what an abuser looks like and behaves like; they know that someone who is professional looking can be behind closed doors someone who has terrorized his wife and family. In fact, you have doctors, attorneys, actors who all look fabulous to the community but who are violent abusers. I think it comes down to a lack of training, lack of accountability.

What is the long-term impact of this problem?

As long as this situation continues we will undo years of progress on domestic violence because women are put in a Catch-22. If they don’t report child abuse or domestic violence, they stand the risk of losing their kids because they failed to protect them. But if they do disclose domestic violence or sexual abuse then the kids are at risk of being taken away because the mothers will be blamed for alienating them or fabricating charges.

Was it difficult to find a network to back your show?

No, I can’t say it was hard. We’ve been producing programs for Public Television for more than 20 years. I’m glad and proud that they are broadcasting our programs. We co-produced Breaking the Silence with Connecticut Public Television and it was aired nationally by PBS.

But the backlash has been pretty strong. There’s been an organized campaign mostly by father’s rights groups to demand that PBS stop distributing the program. They characterized it  as an attack on fathers. This is akin to saying because you’re doing a documentary on the Holocaust you’re accusing all Germans. It makes no sense. But it has given them a forum and they have jumped on it.

Our point was not to deny that some men are victims of domestic violence. We did not seek to portray all men as rabid violent abusers. What we wanted to say is simple: children should not be put in the custody of a parent who is endangering them. In reviewing the show, ombudsmen for both the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS criticized Breaking the Silence for lacking balance.

How do you respond?

The CPB Ombudsman, Ken Bode, clearly had some personal axe to grind. He did not bother to contact us before writing his “report” and simply regurgitated the fathers’ rights arguments. He went on to write two more “updates” without any indication that he was interested in the fairness and balance he claimed our documentary was lacking. The PBS Ombudsman did a more honest job even if we disagreed with his conclusions. And unlike Ken Bode, he published letters he received from people who disagreed with his report.

PBS’s official statement on the film indicated that, “The producers approached the topic with the open mindedness and commitment to fairness that we require of our journalists. Their research was extensive and supports the conclusions drawn in the program. Funding from the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation met PBS’s underwriting guidelines; the Foundation had no editorial influence on program content. However, the program would have benefited from more in-depth treatment of the complex issues surrounding child custody and the role of family courts and most specifically the provocative topic of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). Additionally, the documentary’s ‘first-person story telling approach’ did not allow the depth of the producers’ research to be as evident to the viewer as it could have been.”

Did you look for a father who had a similar experience to some of the mothers featured in your show?

Yes, I spoke with a father’s organization and it was clear that that they had a specific political agenda that they wanted to bring to this. The women we interviewed were simply mothers who were trying to protect their kids.

Your main source of funding for Breaking the Silence, the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation, has also distanced itself from the program. Are you surprised by this?

The Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation did not distance itself from the program. There are very strict guidelines for PBS underwriters who are not to exercise any control over the editorial content of the programs they support. Mary Kay simply made it clear that these rules had been respected and that we the filmmakers had full editorial control. The work of the foundation and of Mary Kay Corporation on the issue of domestic violence is remarkable and will continue to affect positively the lives of thousands of women across the country.
It seems that the discussion about Breaking the Silence has turned into a debate over style rather than substance. Would you agree?
If the documentary helps in any way to open a dialogue about how family courts are victimizing the very families they are supposed to protect, then any debate will have been positive.
Has there been any positive outcome?

Yesterday, I was in Westchester County where I showed an eight-minute excerpt of Breaking the Silence to family court judges and personnel. Some were aware of the issues we presented and others were surprised. But it was very positive to see this information being used. You are not the first journalist to get into hot water after reporting on this topic. Kristen Lombardi, another contributor to this book, was sued and lost after writing an expose in the Boston Phoenix.

Why do you think these stories generate so much of a backlash?

These are complex stories filled with pain and extreme passions. There are strong vested interests that want to keep the public from knowing what is going on in family courts. I believe we’re approaching a tipping point when people will demand more accountability from our courts.

What advice do you give to other journalists who want to cover this issue?

My only advice is, get your facts straight, get good insurance and get a good attorney.

Are you planning to do a follow up to Breaking the Silence?

While our next project will not be on domestic violence, we are committed to do more on this issue and to follow up on what we have learned with Breaking the Silence.

See the entire documentary at angelfury.org (go about half way down the page).