In 2008, PROTECT fought hard in Virginia to win desperately-needed resources for law enforcement teams that "go back through the Internet" to catch child pornography traffickers and rescue their victims. Alicia's Law was a major victory, named for a brave PROTECT member and fighter Alicia Kozakiewicz, who at age 13 was rescued from an abductor in Virginia.

Virginia's two Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task forces didn't just talk about how they were going to use Alicia's Law money...they got to work. In the year since, dozens of children have been rescued from living nightmares, thanks to Alicia and thanks to PROTECT members like you.

But now Virginia has balanced its budget by slashing Alicia's Law!

The Governor and Legislature made a critical miscalculation, thinking they could rely on federal money that wasn't actually there.

Now there is only one man who can fix it: Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. Alicia has already made a personal appeal to Gov. Kaine for help. Later today, she'll tell millions worldwide about her fight on the Oprah Winfrey Show. She'll be joined by PROTECT legislative director Camille Cooper.

South Carolina puts sex offenders who prey on children in jail up to 15 years and charges them with a felony crime -- unless that sexual predator is related to his victim. Then he gets probation, therapy, or maybe one year in jail.

A sexual predator is a sexual predator, regardless of who he chooses to molest. Family members who attack other family members should not get off so easy. This law needs to be changed.

SECTION 16-15-20. Incest. (from the South Carolina Legislature website)

“Any persons who shall have carnal intercourse with each other within the following degrees of relationship, to wit:

(1) A man with his mother, grandmother, daughter, granddaughter, stepmother, sister, grandfather's wife, son's wife, grandson's wife, wife's mother, wife's grandmother, wife's daughter, wife's granddaughter, brother's daughter, sister's daughter, father's sister or mother's sister; or

(2) A woman with her father, grandfather, son, grandson, stepfather, brother, grandmother's husband, daughter's husband, granddaughter's husband, husband's father, husband's grandfather, husband's son, husband's grandson, brother's son, sister's son, father's brother or mother's brother;

Shall be guilty of incest and shall be punished by a fine of not less than five hundred dollars or imprisonment not less than one year in the Penitentiary, or both such fine and imprisonment.”

SECTION 16-15-140. Committing or attempting lewd act upon child under sixteen. (from the SC website)

“It is unlawful for a person over the age of fourteen years to wilfully and lewdly commit or attempt a lewd or lascivious act upon or with the body, or its parts, of a child under the age of sixteen years, with the intent of arousing, appealing to, or gratifying the lust or passions or sexual desires of the person or of the child.

A person violating the provisions of this section is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, must be fined in the discretion of the court or imprisoned not more than fifteen years, or both.”

What can you do?

Contact SC legislators to express your disapproval of this law, no matter where you are from. You can contact them through:

* The SC House of Representatives list of members
* The SC State Senate list of members or contact Glenn McConnell at senator@glennmcconnell.com

And you can:

* Leave a post here expressing your opinion
* Write a letter to a SC newspaper or TV news station
* Forward this information to friends

Disorder in the Courts: Mother and Their Allies Take on the Family Law System

Edited by Helen Grieco, Rachel Allen and Jennifer Friedlin

Disorder in the Courts features essays by some of the nation’s leading experts on the crisis of mothers, especially those who are trying to protect their children from abusive fathers, in the family courts.

This e-book includes: a preface by Phyllis Chesler; “Domestic Violence, What’s That? One Mother’s Case and Her Fight for Justice,” by Karen Anderson; “Domestic Violence, What is that? One Woman’s Case and Her Fight for Justice,” by Karen Anderson; “Making a Mothers’ Movement,” by Dr. Lundy Bancroft; “Turning a Personal Battle into a Political Crusade,” an Interview with Karen Hartley-Nagle; “The Power of One in Alaska,” by Paige Hodson; “A Judge’s Perspective,” an Interview with Sol Gothard; “Child Sexual Abuse and Child Custody Disputes,” by Dr. Robert Geffner, et al.; “Protective Mothers in Child Custody Disputes: A Study of Judicial Abuse,” by Dr. Geraldine Butts Stahly; “Toward Better Outcomes in Child Custody Disputes,” by Sharon Bass; “Joint Custody - A Failed Proposition for Women, Children…and Loving Fathers,” by Trish Wilson; “Down the Rabbit Hole: Legal Strategy in Protective Parent Cases,” by Kristin, Diane, and Charles Hofheimer; “Consequences of Covering the Courts,” by Kristin Lombardi; “The Making of ‘Small Justice: Little Justice in America’s Family Courts,” by Garland Waller; “What Breaking the Silence Means,” an Interview with Filmmaker Dominique Lasseur; “The Protective Mothers’ Movement: An Activist’s Notes,” by Dr. Mo Therese Hannah; and an Afterword: “Activism is the Answer,” by Helen Grieco.

It is a wealth of information and a valuable resource for mothers, domestic violence advocates, therapists, researchers, journalists, attorneys, judges and anyone who cares about justice and the safety of women and their children.

You can download this e-book here.

"O" Magazine Nov 2006 Article "No, Daddy, No"

Oprah is taking on the issue of family courts going light on sexual offenders who molest their own children -- and its about time. Finally, a survivor of child sexual abuse has enough power, clout, and money to take this issue to center stage. Cheers to Oprah, Jan Goodwin, and "O" Magazine for raising awareness about incest exception laws and practices that put sexual predators who hunt within their own families in therapy rather than in jail.

From the article:

What's contested about the exception laws is the assumption that adults who molest their children can be rehabilitated. Many experts don't believe treatment actually works. After witnessing what happened under the Illinois incest exception law, Poskin--who actually helped write the law in 1983--pushed to overturn the same law in 2003. "We didn't see a reduction in recidivism," she says. "In those 20 years, a lot of children were probably harmed. We now know that if an offender is put back in the home, it is highly likely he will offend again."


You can read it here:  http://www.jangoodwin.com/articles/pleasedaddyno.pdf

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

Incestuous dads get special treatment

Many states, mine included, treat sex offenders differently according to their relationship to their victims. If a sex offender is the child's parent, then the offender is often not charged, given probation, put in a counseling program or otherwise given different treatment than other sex offenders.

However, many states are changing this approach to incest. Read these articles to see how some states are changing their laws and approaches:

The North Carolina Experience
by Grier Weeks

The politics of child protection are awfully strange. Try to get a law changed to punish a hated crime like incest, and you'll start to see why.

Imagine a law that said an uncle who raped his niece was guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by 45 days of community service. Or one that said a father who sexually assaulted his own child had committed a minor felony, punishable by probation.

That was the law in North Carolina, before state senator Steve Metcalf proposed to reform the State's outrageous 1879 incest statutes. Change the laws, he said, and treat incest the same way we would child sexual abuse by strangers. It was a small act of decency—a promise to children living in terror that the law would value and protect them the same as it does other children.

It was also an important example to states all over the nation of how they could move to criminalize all child sexual abuse.

Continue reading this article here

Closing the Loopholes for Incestuous Offenders
By Elizabeth Donald

If a person molests a child in Illinois, he faces up to 30 years in prison.

If he molests his own child, he can get probation.

The reason is a special provision in the Illinois criminal code that allows for a lighter sentence if a person commits incest rather than molesting a stranger's child. And it has caught the eye of national children's rights groups and state legislators, who want to put an end to Illinois' incest exception.

Continue reading this article here

Illinois to Eliminate Child Sexual Abuse Loophole

Dunn-Harmon Bill Removes 19 Year Old Provision Allowing Preferential Treatment for Child Molesters. The Illinois General Assembly passed landmark legislation late yesterday that ends a two-decades long practice of granting probation to those who rape children in their own families. Contine reading this article here

Arkansas Overhauls Incest Law

Legislature Creates Tough New Penalties for Crimes Against Children by Family Members. The Arkansas legislature made history as its 2003 session came to a close last week, becoming one of the first states in the union to overhaul its incest laws and toughen prison sentences for child sexual abuse by family members. The legislation, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Percy Malone (D-Arkadelphia), eliminates preferential treatment for criminals who rape children in their own family. (Senate Bill 863/Act 1469)

"Arkansas sent a message to the rest of the nation today," Malone said after the bill's passage. "Laws that excuse child sexual abuse have no place in a civilized society."

To read the rest of the article, click here

Tests can't reveal a pedophile

Evidence of Penile Plethysmography,
Psychological Profiles, Inventories and
Other "Not a Pedophile" Character and
Opinion Evidence Offered on Behalf
of a Defendant in a Child Sexual Abuse
Case is Inadmissible Under
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceutical

By Susan K. Smith, Atty.*
Copyright ©1998 Susan K. Smith, Atty. All rights reserved.

Abstract: The memorandum reviews the standard of admissibility for scientific evidence as set forth in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579, 113 S. Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993) and adopted in State v. Porter, 241 Conn. 57, 698 A.2d 739 (1997). The memorandum reviews the evidence offered by the defendant in a civil child sexual abuse and argues that the defense expert's conclusions that the defendant is "not a pedophile" based on the results of a sexual behaviors assessment is inadmissible under Daubert. The author argues that the evidence should be excluded either due to a lack of scientific reliability of the tests in the diagnostic context (penile plethysmography), or for a failure to meet Daubert's "fit" requirement (i.e. MMPI-2 might be scientifically valid but lacks correlation to diagnosis of pedophilia). The memorandum quotes the scientific literature extensively and collects the known cases precluding the admission of penile plethysmography evidence in legal proceedings. The author also argues that the evidence should be excluded as impermissible character evidence. You can continue reading this legal brief here

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder that is characterized by extreme feelings of self-importance, a high need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. NPD can be considered as a pathological form of narcissism. It is estimated that 0.7-1% of the general population are afflicted with NPD. Most people with NPD (50-75%, according to the DSM) are men.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

Persons with this disorder present severely overly-inflated feelings of self-worth, grandiosity, and superiority over others. Persons with narcissistic personality disorder often exploit others who fail to admire them, and are overly sensitive to criticism, judgment, and defeat.
http://www.frankfordhospitals.org/healthinfo/adult/mentalhealth/glossary.html#N

NPD & Child Custody

A parent diagnosed with full-fledged Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) should be denied custody and be granted only restricted rights of visitation under *supervision.*

Narcissists accord the same treatment to children and adults. They regard both as sources of narcissistic supply, mere instruments of gratification - idealize them at first and then devalue them in favour of alternative, safer and more subservient, sources. Such treatment is traumatic and can have long-lasting emotional effects.
The narcissist's inability to acknowledge and abide by the personal boundaries set by others puts the child at heightened risk of abuse - verbal, emotional, physical, and, often, sexual. His possessiveness and panoply of indiscriminate negative emotions - transformations of aggression, such as rage and envy - hinder his ability to act as a "good enough" parent. His propensities for reckless behaviour, substance abuse, and sexual deviance endanger the child's welfare, or even his or her life. (The Narcissist and His Family FAQ #22 - By: Dr. Sam Vaknin http://samvak.tripod.com/faq22.html)

Research shows.....

Stahly, G. B., Krajewski, L., Loya, B. Uppal, K., German, G., Farris, W., Hilson, N., & Valentine, J. (2004). Protective mothers in child custody disputes: A study of judicial abuse.

To better understand the problems that protective parents face in the legal system, researchers at California State University, San Bernardino, are performing an on-going national survey. To date, over 100 self-identified protective parents have completed the 101-item questionnaire. The study found that prior to divorce, 94% of the protective mothers surveyed were the primary caretaker and 87% had custody at the time of separation. However, as a result of reporting child abuse, only 27% were left with custody after court proceedings. 97% of the mothers reported that court personnel ignored or minimized reports of abuse and that they were punished for trying to protect their children. 45% of the mothers say they were labeled as having Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). Most protective parents lost custody in emergency ex parte proceedings (where they were not notified or present) and where no court reporter was present. 65% reported that they were threatened with sanctions if the "talked publicly" about the case.

The average cost of the court proceedings was over $80,000 and over a quarter of the protective parents reported being forced to file bankruptcy as a result of filing for custody of their children. 87% of the protective parents believe that their children are still being abused; however, 63% have stopped reporting the abuse for fear that contact with their children will be terminated. Eleven percent of the children were reported to have attempted suicide.

Neustein, A., & Goetting, A. (1999). Judicial Responses to Protective Parents, Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 4, 103-122.
http://www.haworthpressinc.com/store/SampleText/J070.pdf (go to page 109 of pdf)

This study examined judicial responses to protective parents' complaints of child sexual abuse in 300 custody cases with extensive family court records. The investigators found that only in 10% of cases was primary custody was given to the protective parent and supervised contact with alleged abuser. Conversely, 20% of the cases resulted in a predominantly negative outcome where the child was placed in the primary legal and physical custody of the allegedly sexually abusive parent. (see p. 108). In the rest of the cases, the judges awarded joint custody with no provisions for supervised visitation with the alleged abuser.

Rosen, L. N., & Etlin, M. (1996). The hostage child: Sex abuse allegations in custody disputes. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

This book challenges the presumption that allegations of child sexual abuse that arise during custody disputes are usually fabricated. Five cases are described in which children were not protected from their abuser during custody disputes, despite the existence of medical evidence of sexual abuse. In these cases, the allegations were not believed, and the children were returned to the parent who abused them.

Faller, K. C., & DeVoe, E. (1995). Allegations of sexual abuse in divorce, Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 4(4), 1-25.

The authors examined 214 allegations of sexual abuse in divorce cases that were evaluated by a multidisciplinary team at a university-based clinic. 72.6% were determined likely, 20% unlikely, and 7.4% uncertain. The temporal relationship between allegations and divorce were analyzed and results revealed that in cases where CSA was judged to be likely or uncertain, in 18% of these cases divorce followed discovery of sexual abuse, in 32% cases discovery of sexual abuse followed divorce, in 34% of cases sexual abuse followed divorce, and 16% of allegations were found to be unrelated to divorce. Of the 20% of cases that were judged to be false or possibly false cases, only approximately a quarter (n = 10) were determined to have been consciously made. The remainder were classified as misinterpretations.

Faller and DeVoe found that 40 concerned parents experienced negative sanctions associated with raising the issue of sexual abuse. These sanctions included being jailed, losing custody to the alleged offender, a relative, or foster case, limitation or loss of visitation, admonitions not to report alleged abuse again to the court, Protective Services or the police, and prohibitions against taking the child to a physician or therapist because of concerns about sexual abuse in the future. None of the parents experiencing these sanctions were ones who were judged to have made calculated false allegations. In fact, sanctioned cases tended to score higher on a composite scale of likelihood of sexual abuse, and were more likely to have medical evidence than cases without sanctions.

Lowenstein, S. R. (1991). Child sexual abuse in custody and visitation litigation: Representation for the benefit of victims. UMKC Law Review, 60, 227-82.

Sharon Lowenstein examined 96 custody and visitation disputes involving allegations of child sexual abuse from 33 states. Visitation was the principal issues in 36 cases. The father was alleged to have sexually molested their child in each of these 36 cases. Yet in two-thirds (24) of these cases fathers were granted unsupervised visitation.

Custody was the principle issue in 56 cases. In 27 of the 56 cases (48%) mothers lost custody. In 17 of these cases (63%) the mother lost custody to a father alleged to be a perpetrator. In two cases (3.6%) fathers lost custody. No father lost custody to a mother whose household included an alleged perpetrator (either the mother, a stepfather, the mother's boyfriend, or one of mother's relatives).

Children Abused by Family Court Fight Back

I wonder if the people who work in the Famiily Court system fully realize that the children they are failing to protect now will someday be adults. And can sue them.

The Couragous Kids Network holds accountable the adults who failed to protect them when they were children. The Family Court took these now grown children away from protective parents and gave them to abusives ones. They have every right to be angry. Go check 'em out.

Because they were children when they were abused, no one listened when they really needed it. Our Family Court system needs to listen to the children--when they are children.

Here is a PBS documentary, Breaking the Silence:  Children's Stories  that features many of these children's stories.

Inalienable Rights of Children

To hold adults accountable for abusing them or allowing abuse to continue.

To enjoy the same legal and constitutional rights adults enjoy.

To have a guardian advocate oversee the work of the system for them exclusively.

To have legal matters pertaining to their protection heard by a judge other than the one hearing their parents' divorce case.

To have their case heard by a judge trained and experienced in the full effects of child sexual abuse and child development.

To hold an accused parent responsible for proving visitation would be good for them, rather than hold the protecting parent responsible for proving it might cause harm.

To see their convicted abusers punished under the full extent of the law rather than have sentences mitigated because the victim was a child or family member.

To be examined by doctors and experts who have extensive experience and training in child-sexual-abuse issues.

from: http://www.againstsexualabuse.org/rights.asp

Book: From Madness to Munity: Why Mothers are Running from the Family Courts

From Madness to Mutiny
Why Mothers Are Running from the Family Courts -- and What Can Be Done about It
Neustein, Amy and Lesher, Michael; Raoul Felder, fwd.

"This book is a must read for every feminist, especially mothers." --Helen Grieco, Executive Director, California National Organization of Women

A powerful exposé of the family court system’s prejudice against mothers trying to protect their sexually abused children.

In this astonishing book, sociologist Amy Neustein and attorney Michael Lesher examine the serious dysfunction of the nation’s family courts -- a dysfunction that too often results in the courts’ failure to protect the people they were designed to help. Specifically, the authors chronicle cases in which mothers who believe their children have been sexually abused by their fathers are disbelieved, ridiculed or punished for trying to protect them. All too often the mother, in such a case, is deemed the unstable parent, and her children are removed from her care, to be placed in foster care or even with the father credibly accused of abusing them.

Employing a special form of sociological inquiry known as ethnomethodology, they show how judges, private attorneys, law guardians, child protective service caseworkers and court-appointed mental health experts on a day-to-day basis collaboratively produce a closed and claustrophobic family court setting that makes practical sense to the system’s practitioners -- but looks like madness to everyone else. They also describe the social interactive work of mothers trapped inside the system. Faced with judicial rulings that seem to violate their most basic parental values, these mothers litigate furiously, take their stories to the press, go on hunger strikes, or turn fugitive with their children through a modern-day “underground railroad.”

From Madness to Mutiny offers an overview of family court malfunction and the parental mutiny that results from it. The authors outline the new legal landscape that makes the madness possible and show how the system has failed to react to severe criticism from media and legislators. And they discuss ways to reform the family courts, with the goal of transforming them from instruments of punishment to true institutions of justice.


“A groundbreaking new book that is perhaps the most highly readable scholarly work I’ve encountered in my 14 years in academia . . . The very first to provide the historical and contextual chronology of this system’s steady decline into chaos and corruption over the past two decades. It is eminently accurate and rigorously documented -- a book that will hit scholars, professionals, and lay persons right between their eyes. This is the book that mothers have been waiting for . . . I consider this book among the most important of the decade.”--Maureen Therese Hannah, Siena College

"There's a marvelous groundswell of activism that I didn't see 20 years ago,' said Neustein, co-author of the forthcoming From Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers Are Running From the Family Courts - and What Can Be Done About it. After more than 18 years of fighting her own battle, Neustein says she sees all the recent activity as a sign of hope that one day soon her work might be done and she will be vindicated. "I hope to make myself obsolete, " Neustein said. "I wish this had never happened. No one wants to go through this." --Forward

Neustein's Op-Ed in The Jewish Press
"I have devoted nearly twenty years of my life to reforming the family court system for all mothers who share my plight, and with the forthcoming publication of this book I hope my work is nearing fruition. Too many mothers and children have suffered from the abuses of the family courts, and from the ignorance and misinformation that has so far shielded them. My daughter and I are among those victims. To me, this book is a step toward liberation, for it will finally present the facts as they are. Truth will free the innocent just as it horrifies. the guilty."

“.. [Y]ou will find this a hard book to put down, because it is a book that matters.”--The Residential (Edgewater, NJ)

"Amy Neustein. . . said that mothers who raise allegations of sexual abuse are often punished with the loss of custody -- even when there is no proof that the abuse charges were fabricated or that they did anything to harm their children's welfare." --SuburbanChicagoNews.com

“There is extraordinary merit in the claims the authors make… [and] many of the reforms, suggested in the concluding three chapters, are worth consideration.” —Law and Politics Book Review

"The book could be read as an indictment of the system; and, in many ways, it is. Yet it carefully lays out positive opportunities for change.
Neustein says that she is appealing to all the Jewish mothers among us.
'I'm hoping that the Jewish community will (embrace this issue) and see it as tikkun olam, repairing the world,' says Neustein, who says that her daughter remained with her father until she was 18 and has had no contact with her mother. 'As Jews we always have hope,' she says, adding that her faith has not been compromised by her ordeal.' hope Jewish women will address this.'" —Jewish News of Greater Phoenix

"This book is essential reading for any health or mental health professional or legal advocate for children." —Family Violence and Sexual Assault Bulletin

"Amy Neustein's work helps to promote [a] promising future by teaching and training mothers to stand up to family court injustices in their fight to protect their children." —The Jewish Standard

“I thank . . . Neustein and Lesher for the courage and the skill to bring this problem to broader social attention . . . Theirs is a brave and much-needed effort.” —National Women's Studies Association Journal



TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword - Raoul Felder • Acknowledgments • Part I. Family Courts: The Problem • An Oveview of Family Court Madness - and Mother's Mutiny • The New Legal Landscape • Part II. Observations in Depth • Research Methods • Robed Rage • Lawless Law Guardians • Anti-Social Services • Mental Health Quackery • Mothers and Madness: The "Aftershocks" of the System • Part III. Changes • "Rebirthing" the Family Court System • Reforming the Courts • Reforming the Court Auxiliaries • Notes • References • Index


AMY NEUSTEIN, Ph.D., is a sociologist, author, and lecturer. In 1986 she founded a legal research and advocacy center in New York City, Help Us Regain the Children, to study the plight of mothers who lost custody of children. The findings of her study were published in the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, and have frequently been cited in the published work and lecture material of other researchers. In 1996, she received a Humanitarian Award from Mothers Against Sexual Abuse. Dr. Neustein has also published in a number of national journals, magazines, and newspapers, and has made appearances on radio and television.

MICHAEL LESHER is a lawyer and writer who has published in The Village Voice, The Jewish Week, Forward, Canadian Jewish News, and North Jersey Herald & News. He has contributed to legal publications such as Moore’s Federal Practice, Weinstein’s Evidence, and The Federal Litigation Guide Reporter.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -
CONTACT: UNITED FOR JUSTICE (818) 992-4571
OPEN MESSAGE TO UNITED STATES SENATE & HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

The American Judges Association reports one of the most common reasons for resuming an abusive relationship is fear the abuser will act on threats of taking the children. Studies show that batterers have been able to convince authorities that the victim is unfit or undeserving of sole custody in approximately 70% of challenged cases.

This is one of America's darkest most shameful secrets. The problem has taken on epidemic proportions and we call upon our Senators and Representatives to act swiftly to ensure prompt investigation. We want to be heard and to have these issues addressed openly. Please make this your top priority for all the mothers and children in this country and for generations to come.

Growing numbers of protective, non-offending, loving and fit mothers are losing custody of their children everyday. They are losing despite being good mothers, despite a lack of past involvement of the father with the children, and regardless of being the primary caregiver. Women who seek to exit bad or even dangerous relationships and/or seek child support are met with retaliatory suits for child custody. Many women who try to leave an abusive partner find that the court system can become a place where the abuser is enabled and even facilitated in victimizing her and her children.

Courts increasingly not only ignore, but even bar evidence of child abuse, including sexual molestation. Amazingly, the perpetrators the women seek to leave, or protect their children from, are increasingly awarded sole custody or unsupervised visitation with the children they have harmed. This results in ultimate control over the child victim, ultimate revenge against the child's mother, and an end to the father's child support obligation. The abuser is hence provided further control of the mother by collecting support from her while she is often denied contact with her children. In this way, both child and mother are silenced.

A junk science theory called " Parental Alienation Syndrome" or "PAS" is being used as the primary courtroom tactic to shut the mouths of abused children and mothers. Developed by Richard Gardner of Columbia University, this "syndrome" he purports is not based on systematic research, instead developed from personal observation and prejudices. Gardner has never tested his theory, it is not contained within the DSM-IV, and most of its foundational assumptions have been disproved. Gardner has espoused recommendations called "Threat Therapy" to send children to juvenile detention centers and mothers to jail for reporting abuse. He has written articles expressing the idea that incest and pedophilia may not be as traumatic as current social attitudes suggest. PAS is routinely used in courts across the country to inappropriately remove custody from loving, safe and fit mothers under a variety of scenarios: domestic violence, child abuse of any sort, reluctance to support flip-flopping shared custody schedules, reluctance to send children on unsupervised visitation with fathers with anger-management problems, substance abuse problems, poor parenting, etc.

Abused and molested children have lost their voices in court. There exists a pattern of court rulings which reflect that molestation or other abuses of one's own child can earn a father sole custody, whereas if the same crime had been committed upon the child who lives next door, the same perpetrator would be sentenced to a long prison term. While these re-victimized children lose their mothers, protracted litigation pads the pockets of lawyers, mental health providers, custody evaluators, and visitation monitors.

One of us lost all 5 of her children. One teenager hanged himself rather than see his mom jailed for his refusal to visit his dad. A medically fragile child died from neglect less than 3 weeks after he was wrongfully removed from his mother by the court. One of us stood criminal trial for "kidnapping" our own children -- and the jury who acquitted her admonished the county for the arrest and prosecution. One of us was jailed for refusing to turn her children over to a convicted child molester. Routinely, mothers are illegally jailed for trying to protect their children from documented abuses. Some of our phones are tapped, some of us have to pay monitors to see our children, most of us are impoverished by spending life savings and losing employment to keep up with endless court proceedings, entirely impossible child support payments, orders to pay the father's attorney fees, contempt charges, fines and sanctions -- all intended and strategically ordered to lead to certain financial ruin of mothers. This is but some of the hundreds of tactic designed to bankrupt the protective parent.

This is no longer an individual state issue but a federal government issue. Federal funding to court systems for various unsound, discriminatory and unscientific programs ordered in many of these cases is of great concern. Congressional findings in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) 1999 specifically identifies the use of PAS as an act of violence toward women which endangers children. It states that PAS is frequently and improperly used by courts and custody evaluators to discount children's reasonable fear and anger toward a violent parent and that this "syndrome" is used almost exclusively against women. It further states that when domestic violence is or has been present in the relationship, shared parenting arrangements, couples counseling, or mediation arrangements may increase the danger to the children and to the non-violent parent. We call upon you to investigate why our state courts are allowed to proliferate its use unchecked.

We desperately hope our open public letter will be published and broadcast across the country and that it will cause readers to demand investigations and journalists to expose a "system" which is seriously broken.

As mothers who care about all children, we ask that you expose a system that does not work. We further ask that you eliminate federal funding of discriminatory groups and programs that enable continued harm to women and children.

Sincerely,

UNITED FOR JUSTICE
www.unitedforjustice.com

Editors Note:
United foPlease feel free to download this Open Message for distribution to the media, state legislators, Congress, your local NOW chapter, etc.
File: UJF Open Message.doc