The trend of moving toward family therapy and reunification rather than criminal action started in 1981 in California and spread across the nation. However, California has now recanted -- and changed the law and their family reunification approach. In fact, the incest exception laws in which sexual offenders who are related to their victims receive different treatment than other sex offenders-- probation, therapy , ect. -- with an emphasis on family reunification, are being overturned across the nation. North Carolina, Illinois, Arkansas, Kansas and other states have also changed their laws and their approaches. Interestingly, O Magazine published an article about this issue this month, and the questions I've been exploring about the family court system are also suddenly up for national debate in the popular media.

I've pasted information below about the 2005 California bill that reflects the changing legal approach to incest across the nation, in case you're interested:


ABOUT THE CIRCLE OF TRUST BILL

You're not likely to see it on the evening news. It might not even make it into your daily paper. Nevertheless, the passage of the California Circle of Trust bill is a landmark event, potentially affecting far more children, all across America, than the headline-grabbing laws named after murdered children so popular in the news these days.

The Circle of Trust campaign brought together what Senator Jim Battin calls, “a vast coalition of support… the largest and most diverse that I have seen in my eleven years in the Legislature.” This coalition was fighting for a fundamental shift in the way the largest state in the union responds to the sexual abuse of children. It was a shift that would begin the dismantling of a paradigm (or prevailing philosophy) that California established in 1981.

Since 1981, California law denied equal protection to children who were victims of child rape and sexual assault in their own homes. While the penalty for continuous sexual abuse of a child is 3-16 years in prison, an intentional loophole allowed convicted sex offenders to get probation and therapy instead... as long as their victim is a child under 14 living in the same household.

California's legal double standard was the result of lobbying by an influential sex offender group called Parents United. This group of incest perpetrators and their spouses convinced the California legislature that the "father offender" was different or special, and that he deserved special consideration and treatment. The ultimate goal, however, of this group and the law was not just lenient treatment of those who hurt their own children--it was family reunification.

The same California law (PC 1203.066) that gave preferential treatment to child sexual abusers for preying on children in the home also creates strong legal incentives to return victims to the custody of their perpetrators. The law did not simply allow probation instead of prison for in-family molesters: it does so only when the perpetrator agrees to attend family therapy. Instead of simply mandating sex offender treatment, California law singled out and recognized just one type of treatment program--"an integrated program of treatment" for perpetrators and victims and spouses.

Because of California's incest exception, tens of thousands of child sexual assault victims have endured unthinkable betrayal at the hands of a caregiver and bravely disclosed their abuse... only to see their abuser rewarded with preferential treatment, and in many cases return home to abuse them again.

If this philosophy sounds alien, it shouldn't. Given the respectability of law, California's paradigm of decriminalizing incest and encouraging family reunification spread across America, reinforcing the policies and attitudes that were already to be found everywhere: that children are property; that sexually molesting them is “sick,” not criminal; and that both parents have a right to their children, no matter how heinous their behavior.

The devastating effects of this philosophy are found everywhere. They can be seen when prosecutors slough off child abuse cases to family court or social services… when social workers or therapists attempt to reunify children with their molesters… when officers of the court insist that “the best parent is both parents,” even when one of them is a predatory pedophile. It is also bearing fruit when family members—who should rally around the child victim and protect her—rally around the perpetrator instead.

The passage of the Circle of Trust bill will not topple the powerful paradigm of decriminalization and family reunifcation. That cannot be done through legislation alone. But it does represent landmark reform and the most important legislative changes possible along the way to shifting American law away from a paradigm of official tolerance for sexual exploitation of children and towards full civil rights for every child. The Circle of Trust bill struck down these laws in the state where they first took hold: California. The shockwaves will be felt nationwide.

PROTECT began fighting to reform California law in 2003, working with Senator Jim Battin. Senator Battin has been a steadfast protector of children, and a powerful legislative ally. In 2004, the first Circle of Trust bill was killed in the California Senate. In 2005, the bill was passed.

“In 1981 the [California] Legislature passed a law that should rank high in a legal Hall of Shame, granting probation for people who molest children within their own families. The idea in those legislators' minds 20 years ago was that a family should stay together, and that packing a parent off to prison wasn't in the child's best interests … one wonders what on earth those legislators could have been thinking. If anything, the scales should be tipped toward heavier punishment of molesters within a family than those without.”

—The Recorder
June, 2002


Check out PROTECT at http://www.protect.org/ for more information. Or you can go to:

http://www.unitedforjustice.com/circleotbill.htm
http://republican.sen.ca.gov/news/14/PressRelease3600.asp
http://www.senatorjimbattin.com/newsroom/details.asp?id=ni14946922