Child Sexual Abuse and the Family Court

This paper examines judicial decision-making in the Family Court in custody and access disputes where allegations of child sexual abuse have been made. In seven cases examined judges took a sceptical view of such allegations and most commonly granted access in spite of strong evidence of abuse. The interpretation of the ‘best interests of the child’ often favoured continuing contact with both parents, and judges rarely denied access outright. Supervised access, the most common outcome, represents a compromise between familial ideology and child protection.     

Child Therapy and Evidence in Court Proceedings: Tensions and Some Solutions

Correspondence to Kate Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, Heslington, York YO1 5DD. Summary Recent policy developments in the UK, implemented in the wakeof well-publicized child abuse court cases, have highlightedthe tension between offering the abused child adequate supportand providing sound evidence in any statutory proceedings. Therapeuticwork can give the court clear indications of the child's wishes,feelings and developmental needs, with or without explicit verbalstatements, and non-directive play therapy, because it is non-coerciveand largely free from therapist suggestion, is particularlyeffective in this respect. Particular features of non-directiveplay therapy which enhance the validity of such evidence areconsidered and a range of factors involved in presenting therapeuticwork to the courts are explored.     

论经济法的基本价值

经济法的作用主要在于构建自由、平等的市场竞争法律秩序以及良好的宏观经济法律环境,以维护社会整体利益.据此,经济法的价值表现为经济安全、实质正义、社会整体效益、经济自由与经济秩序的和谐.     

On the Consistency of Court Dispositions in the Child Welfare System: A Research Note

An analysis of 4,706 cases of ‘complaints’ under the Child Welfare Act, dealt with by the Children's Court during a two year period, indicated significant differences between the dispositions made in respect of the same complaints by special children's courts in urban areas, by ‘declared’ children's courts in country areas, and by such ‘declared’ courts in areas of Aboriginal concentration. Some of the differences were thought to be attributable to pragmatic and circumstantial considerations associated with the courts' locations. However, significant dispositional differences not attributable to circumstantial factors, that were found between special urban courts, suggested that the observed disparity in dispositions has also a substantive relationship to the courts' differing conceptions of what constitutes the best interest of the child. The findings are discussed in the light of the literature, and some measures that could reduce the existing disparity are suggested.     

从案例看国际法院所阐述的国际法问题

联合国国际法院的司法管辖包括诉讼管辖和咨询管辖.国际法院的咨询管辖无论是在对人管辖和时事管辖方面都有其特殊性,其中以联合国申请复核行政法庭判决事宜委员会为主体向国际法院提请的咨询意见有三个,这三个咨询意见都是针对国际组织内部纠纷的解决程序问题而对联合国行政法庭裁决提出上诉的.国际法院在答复这三个咨询意见时所阐述的国际法问题表明,国际法院的咨询管辖虽然没有拘束力,但为联合国大会、联合国申请复核行政法庭判决事宜委员会等联合国机关提出的法律问题,提出权威性的参考意见和解释,从而在促进国际行政组织法及国际法的发展方面发挥了重要的作用.     

Legal and Other Determinants of Effective Court Intervention in Child Protection Proceedings

An outcome standard and measure are proposed for use in assessing the effectiveness of official interventions in child protection proceedings. It is argued that the standard, as operationalized in the variable Rapid Services/Reunion, is responsive to the needs of public policy analysts concerned with child abuse and neglect. Using an inductive multivariate model, the determinants of Rapid Services/Reunion are identified and estimated. These determinants are discussed in the context of the needs of child protection policy. The analysis is based on a random sample of 210 North Carolina child protection cases.     

Two Value Positions in Recent Child Care Law and Practice

Summary This paper aims to explore two contrasting viewpoints on stateand agency intervention in child care, and the major pointsof divergence and similarity between these viewpoints. Materialis drawn from literature and from interviews conducted by theauthor with individuals prominent in the child care field.¹Simply put, one viewpoint emphasizes the prevention of the break-upof ‘natural’ or biological families and the restorationof biological ties where severed, while the other advocatesthe readier removal of children from natural families and theprovision of permanent, secure substitute families when naturalparenting is unsatisfactory. At attempt is made to place thesetwo positions in a wider intellectual context.     

Court Conciliation: An Analysis

The basis of this article is an analysis of 50 referrals for conciliation from the Magistrate's Court to the Hastings Community Counselling Service in New Zealand. An examination of conciliation and its relationship to various professions precedes the actual analysis. Some comments on prevention are added, as the main interest of the Counselling Service is the preventive approach to social work. It is suggested that in a period of change in marriage patterns a consideration of values in relation to marriage and family life is timely. A small sample has serious limitations but the tentative conclusions and observed trends may stimulate further research and assist in establishing areas where action is required.     

Welfare Reform and Child Fostering: Pinpointing Affected Child Populations*

Objective. The objective of our research is to examine the impact of New Jersey's welfare reform called the Family Development Program (FDP) on child fostering among children on welfare. Methods. The research and analytical methods we use include an experimental design and probit regressions. Results. Our results show that FDP impacts are confined to children of short‐term welfare recipients (new cases) but affects both African‐American and white children in this welfare group. Among new cases, FDP decreases the probability of African‐American children living in foster families, resulting in a 28 percent change from the baseline prevalence rate of 7.2 percent. In contrast, FDP increases the likelihood of white children living in foster families, leading to a 70 percent change from the baseline occurrence rate of 1.4 percent. Conclusions. We conclude by discussing the policy implications of such segmented impacts of welfare reform for vulnerable child populations.     

The Child and Suffering:

No abstract available for this article.     

Child Abuse: Risks and Resources

Correspondence to Chris Mills, Dept of Sociology, University of Liverpool, Eleanor Rathbonr Building, Myrtle Street, Liverpool L69 38X. Summary This article is based on observation of 55 child abuse caseconferences held in one metropolitan borough between 1981 and1984. In the past criticism of such conferences has focussedon issues such as inter-departmental rivalry and group dynamics.However, the focus of this study was on the rationality of thedecision-making process. It was found that were few explicit criteria used for makingdecision. In particular the role of the central child abuseregister was found to confuse the situation. Suggestions forimprovements are put forward with paticular emphains on therisk factors involved in individual cases and the need to ensurethat resources appropriate to the degree of estimated risk aremade available.     

Mother–Child Conversations about Emotions: Linkages to Child Aggression and Prosocial Behavior

We examined associations of maternal and child emotional discourse and child emotion knowledge with children's behavioral competence. Eighty‐five upper middle‐income, mostly White preschoolers and mothers completed a home‐based bookreading task to assess discourse about emotions. Children's anger perception bias and emotion situation knowledge were assessed in a separate interview. Children's prosocial behavior, relational aggression, and physical aggression were observed during a preschool‐based triadic play task. Mothers' emotion explanations were correlated with children's emotion situation knowledge and relational aggression. Both mothers' and children's emotion explanations predicted prosocial behavior whereas mothers' use of positive emotional themes was negatively associated with children's anger perception bias. Physical aggression was predicted by mothers' emotion comments, children's anger perception bias, and lack of emotion situation knowledge. Maternal emotion socialization variables were less strongly related to children's behavioral competence after accounting for demographics and child emotional competence. Implications of these findings for future research on emotion socialization are discussed.     

Public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court: A new look at the impact of Court decisions

Judicial scholars have long debated the notion that Court decisions can influence the public's attitudes toward the U.S. Supreme Court. We engage this literature by introducing new dimensions to existing theory for predicting the impact of Court decisions on public confidence in the Court and by introducing innovative methods to test our hypotheses. We begin our analysis by examining the relationship between specific Court decisions and public confidence with aggregate time series data. Our analysis then shifts to an examination of individual-level survey data to examine the same hypotheses. Our results indicate that specific decisions can have a significant positive and negative impact on individual-level confidence in the Court. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for the theoretical and methodological debates over the influence of Court decisions on public confidence.