The marginalisation of children by the legal process

A major study carried out in the Melbourne Children's Court, Victoria, Australia, during 1993–1995, of the factors that influence magistrates' decision-making in child abuse cases, found that magistrates relied more on their legal training and individual discretion than on information from the child protection service when making these decisions. Magistrates' emphasis on adversarial procedures meant that the need to establish the facts in a case was the court's primary consideration and that children's interests, and welfare concerns about them, were marginalised in the hearing of child abuse matters. The article reports on this aspect of the larger study: how the adversarial process ill serves the rights, and best interests, of children in the hearing of child abuse matters and provides case examples to illustrate this. The information is drawn from the qualitative and quantitative data gathered for the major study; data collected from the observation of court hearings, interviews with magistrates and court record analysis.     

The Lingering Debate Over the Parental Alienation Syndrome Phenomenon

ABSTRACT

It's been more than a quarter century since the Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) phenomenon was first observed yet it remains a highly debated concept in the legal and mental health professions. In the years since its inception, judges have relied on PAS to make both short and long-term decisions in custody and visitation cases. Those who support PAS claim that there is scientific evidence to prove its existence, while those who oppose it suggest that it is pseudoscience and should not be relied upon in court to make binding decisions in custody and visitation cases. The critics believe that other factors must be considered in these cases and that PAS is too simple an explanation for complex behaviors seen in parents and children during custody and visitation proceedings. This paper presents both sides of the argument and suggests that the PAS debate lingers on and remains unsettled. It presents the position that there is scientific evidence to support a clinical claim that PAS is observed in some cases, and it presents the argument that not enough rigorous experimentation has been done to prove once and for all that PAS is a diagnosable phenomenon.     

Exploring the Lived Experiences of Psychologists Working With Parental Alienation Syndrome

Divorce is a common modern phenomenon. Changes in legislation to support the best-interest-of-the-child principle are argued to have escalated conflict between parents during custody disputes. Parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is a controversial concept in high-conflict divorces and has received both praise and criticism over the past 2 decades. This study explores the experiences of psychologists working with PAS in private practice. A snowball sample (n = 8) of psychologists willingly participated in the study. Data collection took place by means of in-depth interviews. Transcribed data were analyzed by means of thematic analysis, and themes and subthemes were derived. The 2 main categories that emerged were the participants’ general understanding of PAS and the operational and practical experiences working with PAS. The participants working with PAS referred to it as complex and destructive. The involvement of lawyers, parental pathology, and legislation all contribute to the complex task of intervening in cases where PAS is present. The impact of working with such a complex phenomenon has emotional effects like self-doubt, disappointment, and anxiety. In some cases, this resulted in an active decision on the part of the psychologist not to work with forensic cases any more.     

Internal Migration of Ethno‐national Minorities: The Case of Arabs in Israel

Recent scholarship emphasizes differences among ethnic groups' internal migration patterns. Yet, with few exceptions, research has focused on the Anglo‐American world, neglecting experiences from other regions. This paper is part of a larger research project that studies mobility among the Arab minority in Israel and its driving forces. In this paper we examine patterns of internal migration by analysing the propensity to migrate as well as migrants' individual and social characteristics. First, we survey the theoretical backdrop that is suggested by recent geographic literature on internal migration among ethnic and racial minorities, including native groups. Second, we contextualize the group studied, providing necessary background information on the political, socio‐economic and demographic conditions of Arabs in Israel. We briefly discuss attributes that are – or have been – potential hindering factors to Arab mobility in the Jewish state. Finally, we analyse 1995 national census data at the micro scale and provide a basis for future explanations of the phenomenon. We conclude by outlying some future directions in the study of internal migration of minorities in Israel.     

A Critical Analysis of Parental Alienation Syndrome and Its Admissibility in the Family Court

Abstract

Over the past three decades, parental alienation syndrome (PAS) has been proposed to explain behaviors by a child who refuses to spend time with a parent and actually denigrates that parent within the context of a child custody dispute. Although some mental health professionals and child custody evaluators, attorneys, and judges have been quick to accept and admit PAS as evidence in these disputes, there has been no consistent empirical or clinical evidence that PAS exists or that the alienator's behavior is the actual cause of the alienated child's behavior towards the target parent. This article attempts to help those working with custody issues understand how the PAS construct fails to meet scientific standards and should not be admissible in courts.     

Motivations to Pursue Accreditation in Children's Mental Health Care: A Multiple Case Study

Accreditation is a growing, worldwide phenomenon that has spread to a range of industries and fields, including nonprofit social services and mental health care. Thousands of organizations are accredited, but it is not known what is driving the growth of this phenomenon. Using a multiple case study design, this exploratory study aimed to understand children's mental health agencies' motivations to pursue accreditation. In‐depth interviews, focus groups, document reviews, and limited observations were conducted at five children's mental health agencies that had recently undergone or were undergoing the Council on Accreditation process. Agencies were influenced by external factors, such as policies that require accreditation, wanting to assert their positions in the field, and the need to increase funding opportunities. Other factors were internal, related to agency leadership using accreditation as a platform for change and agencies' genuine intent to improve services. Implications for agencies, accreditors, and future research are offered.     

Child sex abuse and the Irish criminal justice system

The aims of this study were to develop scales to assess experiences of sexually abused children in the Irish criminal justice system (CJS); identify aspects of the CJS which children experience as negative; compare the perceptions of children, parents and professionals of sexually abused children's experiences of the CJS; and determine correlations between perceptions of children's CJS experiences and current psychological adjustment. Forty‐three children, 101 parents, 32 mental health professionals, 27 police officers and 21 lawyers completed parallel versions of the Criminal Justice System Questionnaire (CJSQ) which assessed satisfaction with aspects of the CJS relevant to sexually abused children, specifically: Gardaí (police), medical examination, Director of Public Prosecutions, waiting for court, court professionals, court context and the CJS. Fifteen scales were developed by conducting principal component analyses. Children gave negative ratings on nine of these, and on seven children, parents and professionals differed in their perceptions of how children experienced the CJS with mental health professionals viewing the impact of the CJS as more problematic than parents and children. Scores of children and parents on CJSQ scales correlated with indices of current psychological adjustment. These results point to the importance of making the Irish CJS more child‐friendly and for evaluating these reforms with the CJSQ. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Examining hearing quality in child abuse and neglect cases: The relationship between breadth of discussion and case outcomes

Child abuse and neglect court hearings are complex, multifaceted, and necessary for judicial oversight to ensure safe, timely permanency for youth and families involved in the system. While best practices have been suggested, little research has been conducted to examine what the critical components of a “high quality” dependency court hearing are, and, more importantly how these factors might be related to improved outcomes for children and families. The current study explores the relationship between breadth of discussion at the first hearing on the case and subsequent case decisions and outcomes. Findings suggest a positive relationship between breadth of discussion at the initial hearing and a higher likelihood of relative or parent placements compared to foster care placements, increased presence of parents throughout the life of the case, and higher likelihood of case closure and reunification. The study is limited by a small sample size and focus on one of many court hearings; however, it does provide empirical support that the quality of the court hearing may be related to better outcomes for families.     

Emotional harm and neglect: the legal response

This paper reports on a study of the extent to which child protection applications brought to the Melbourne Children's Court in Victoria, Australia, were based on emotional/psychological harm or neglect of a child and what factors were presented as evidence of harm or neglect. The study examined records of 208 court‐ordered pre‐trial conferences heard in the court between February and July 2002. What was found was that, although cases involving emotional abuse have increased in terms of child protection applications, they remain cases that are difficult to decide. While in 1998/9 emotional harm was a ground in 25.7% of child protection matters completed in the Family Division of the Children's Court of Victoria, legal decision‐makers are reluctant to make a finding of child abuse in these cases because there is less accuracy in the determination of emotional harm and negligible legal criteria available to guide decision‐making. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can't hear or won't hear? — the evidential experience of children with disabilities

Twin brothers aged 12 attended a special needs boarding school which had provision for children with emotional disturbances and other disabilities. While they were at home during the holidays, their mother overheard a conversation between them which led her to suspect abuse. She asked them several questions and decided to contact the police. An investigation began which also included interviewing several other boys, some of whom had been removed from the twins' school and were attending a school elsewhere. The evidence obtained from a number of the boys was considered to be strong enough for the Crown Prosecution Service to take the case forward. Almost a year after the mother's initial referral the committal hearing took place. Lobbying from a local voluntary organization resulted in screens being used in the courtroom which would otherwise not have been provided. The case was heard and transferred to the Crown Court for trial. The magistrate in the committal hearing made clear recommendations that the children's disabilities and the delay there had already been in bringing the case to court should determine that the subsequent trial needed to take place as soon as possible. However, more delays ensued and the final date was established almost a year later. The children each spent between 2 and 6 hours in the witness-box. The defence counsel frequently focused on their disabilities in questioning the validity of their evidence. The twins were expecting to give evidence by video-link, but the delays meant they were considered too old to be ‘vulnerable’ witnesses and had to speak in open court. The first twin's evidence was not completed in one day and the mother was told that she could not talk to either of them about the case, nor could they stay together that night. She was told that she had to choose which of her distressed sons to take home and that she had to make alternative arrangements for the other child. She was given no support in making the decision. In addition to this distress, during the day she had witnessed the defence counsel's attitude to her son, who had severe hearing difficulties. The defence counsel had laughed at the child's difficulty in hearing and said, ‘Can't hear or is it that you don't want to answer?’ One of the other children was humiliated by the defence counsel saying, ‘Who would want a smelly, shitty boy on their lap, no-one hugs smelly, shitty boys like you?’. The child was giving evidence on video-link and became so upset he was ‘switched off’ so that he was no longer visible to the court. Another child had epilepsy and counsel argued that he could not put questions to the child in case the child had a fit. In addition, an ‘expert’ witness who had seen some of the children 5 years previously stated categorically that ‘these children are born liars’. The outcome of this trial was that the headmaster was found guilty on several counts and received an 18-month prison sentence.     

Occupational Segregation and the Tipping Phenomenon: The Contrary Case of Court Reporting in the USA

The ‘tipping’ phenomenon, whereby an occupation switches from dominance by one demographic group to dominance by another, has occurred in various occupations. Multiple causes have been suggested for such switches, including several related to technological change, both through effects on the performance of the work and through the effect of changing demand for different occupations. The court reporting occupation provides a novel setting for testing the relevance of various proposed causes for the increased feminization of many occupations. In this case, many of the general correlates, including declining wages, are not found; rather the phenomenon is related to the earlier feminization of the clerical workforce and the increased identification of court reporting with clerical work.     

Racial Disparities in Drug Court Graduation Rates: The Role of Recovery Support Groups and Environments

There are more than 3,000 drug courts in the United States, and research has demonstrated that, in some drug courts, African American participants are less likely to graduate than their White counterparts. Quantitative studies have documented the problem, but qualitative studies are needed to develop an in-depth understanding of this phenomenon through participants’ experiences. This qualitative study asked African American participants (n = 31) about their lived experiences in drug court to develop insight into the factors that might contribute to racial disparities in drug court outcomes. African Americans had favorable views toward both mandated and natural recovery support groups, and they felt that participating in these support groups increased their likelihood of graduating drug court. Conversely, African Americans felt that a barrier to graduating drug court was their environments, mainly risk factors posed by family, neighborhoods, and peers. Implications for drug court practice are discussed.     

The Continuum of Disclosure: Exploring Factors Predicting Tentative Disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse Allegations During Forensic Interviews and the Implications for Practice,Policy, and Future Research

When a child sexual abuse investigation ensues, many children do not disclose readily to professionals. Defining disclosure beyond the disclosure versus nondisclosure dichotomy is essential, yet little research exists on factors associated with a continuum of disclosure, including active and tentative disclosure. Through the coding of 196 forensic interviews using content analysis and subsequent regression analysis, findings suggest that children of color, children abused by adults, unintentional initial disclosure, and those lacking family support were more likely to tentatively disclose in this study. Implications include a need to understand tentative disclosure as part of a normal continuum of disclosure within court proceedings and investigations of abuse allegations.     

Baby K's unlawful removal: practice issues in the emergency protection of children

This paper addresses the legal and practice issues raised by a particular case in the UK. In January 2008, less than three hours after his birth, Baby K was removed from his mother's care by hospital staff and placed in a separate ward. At a High Court hearing later that morning, it was ruled that the removal of Baby K was unlawful. Important practice issues are raised by this ruling. After setting out the circumstances under which Baby K was removed from his mother, this paper considers a number of issues raised by the case: (i) what constitutes lawful removal under domestic law; (ii) European jurisprudence and domestic law in relation to emergency removal at birth; (iii) parental consent to removal; (iv) professionals' liability for breaches of human rights; and (v) the role of child protection plans in safeguarding children. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strategies and Pretrial Hearings for Child Protection

Abstract

There are various tools that attorneys and their clients might use in custody and/or visitation disputes involving family violence. This column sets forth examples of pretrial motions, hearings, and other strategies. These are used to provide the court with detailed information about the abuse that has happened and the impact that the court's decisions will have upon the children involved.     

Child Sexual Abuse Cases: Implementing a Specialist Judicial List

The damage done to children who are subjected to sexual abuse and the often lengthy delays in the resolution of these matters by the child welfare and legal systems is well documented. With this in mind, the Children's Court in Victoria established for 12 months in 2013 a pilot specialised judicial list (the “D” List) as an intensive case-management approach to more effectively respond to child sexual abuse concerns. The evaluation of the pilot aimed both to review the effectiveness of the list in terms of court functioning, and to provide information about the nature of such cases coming to court, the ages and family circumstances of subject children, decisions made and factors associated with these decisions, and the challenges related to management of and decision-making about such cases. The success of the specialist list has seen it extended to regional courts, because it is a more effective approach to managing and deciding this complex class of cases.     

‘Women,work and family’: Educated women's employment decisions and social policies in Egypt

Despite increased access to education, women's conspicuous absence from the labour market in Egypt, and the Arab world in general, has been a key issue. Building on the stock of evidence on women's employment, this study provides a qualitative analysis of the torrent of challenges that educated married and unmarried women face as they venture into the labour market in Egypt. Single women highlight constrained opportunities due to job scarcity and compromised job quality. Issues of low pay, long hours, informality and workplace suitability to gender propriety norms come to the fore in the interview data. Among married working women, the conditions of the work domain are compounded by challenges of time deprivation and weak family and social support. The article highlights women's calculated and aptly negotiated decisions to work or opt out of the labour market in the face of such challenges. The analysis takes issue with the culturalist view that reduces women's employment decisions to ideology. It brings to the context of Arab countries three global arguments pertaining to the inseparability of work and family for women; the role of social policies and labour market conditions in defining women's employment decisions; and the potential disconnect between employment and empowerment. By looking at women as jobseekers and workers, the analysis particularly highlights the intersectionality of different forms of inequality in defining employment opportunities.     

Parental Alienation: A Measurement Tool

The Rowlands Parental Alienation Scale (RPAS) was administered to 592 parents along with measures of convergent and discriminant validity. The scale was designed to capture the eight domains of parental alienating behavior posited in the literature. Factor analysis extracted only six factors, one of which was not included in the original eight: (a) campaign of denigration towards the alienated parent, (b) the independent thinker phenomenon, (c) reflexive support, (d) presence of borrowed scenarios, (e) spread of animosity to extended family, and (f) lack of positive affect towards the alienated parent. Parents who reported either that a court evaluation or court findings had confirmed the presence of parental alienation scored significantly higher on all six RPAS factors as well as on the overall RPAS score.     

‘Like a fish in a bowl’: parents' perceptions of child protection services

This research involved a small qualitative study focused on family experiences of child protection practice, commissioned as part of a Best Value review of child protection services in a large rural Midlands local authority. Qualitative interviews were undertaken with 18 families who had received child protection services. Findings were mixed in relation to perceived helpfulness of the processes of child protection interventions, with 50% of families reporting some positive bene?t and 22% reporting that such interventions had caused them harm. From the families' perspectives, factors that are associated with positive and negative outcomes are outlined. These include the availability of preventive services, crisis support, respite care, actual provision of services speci?ed in protection plans and an engaging style of practitioners. Conclusions emphasize the value of research focused on family perceptions of services as an important contribution to quality control and service development in child protection service provision. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Abusers gaining custody in family courts: A case series of over turned decisions

Abstract

This article presents findings and recommendations based on an in-depth examination of records from 27 custody cases from across the United States. The goal of this case series was to determine why family courts may place children with a parent that the child alleges abused them rather than with the nonoffending parent. We focused on “turned around cases” involving allegations of child abuse that were at first viewed as false and later judged to be valid. The average time a child spent in the court ordered custody of an abusive parent was 3.2?years. In all cases we uncovered the father was the abusive parent and the mother sought to protect their child. Results revealed that initially courts were highly suspicious of mothers' motives for being concerned with abuse. These mothers were often treated poorly and two-thirds of the mothers were pathologized by the court for advocating for the safety of their children. Judges who initially ordered children into custody or visitation with abusive parents relied mainly on reports by custody evaluators and guardians ad litem who mistakenly accused mothers of attempting to alienate their children from the father or having coached the child to falsely report abuse. As a result, 59% of perpetrators were given sole custody and the rest were given joint custody or unsupervised visitation. After failing to be protected in the first custody determination, 88% of children reported new incidents of abuse. The abuse often became increasingly severe and the children's mental and physical health frequently deteriorated. The main reason that cases turned around was because protective parents were able to present compelling evidence of the abuse and back the evidence up with reports by mental health professionals who had specific expertise in child abuse rather than merely custody assessment.