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Archive for April 27th, 2011

What Steers Family Law Custody “Mistakes”? I’m glad you asked…

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“I’m glad you asked that” is a phrase we see often in “RandiJames” writing.  I’ve been posting in the form of comments, especially to the SFWeekly articles on the California Family Courts  (for over a month now), and in lieu of a real post, here’s a relevant post by a fellow-blogger.  At least, we cover some of the same topics.

MONEY is Helping Pedophiles and Batterers Get Child Custody in Family Courts, in California and Elsewhere

First, let me thank Peter Jamison for his extensive article California Family Courts Helping Pedophiles, Batterers Get Child Custody . Please, go read it. Understand that what he describes is not unique to the State of California.

I want to point out a couple of things in Jamison’s article:

….(And then RandiJames goes on to tear apart the logic in a well-known author in the PAS field, Amy Baker.  I felt that this was unfair to Dr. Baker — who is clearly out-matched when it comes to reason  and common sense — but possibly a waste of firepower to talk about psychology when the issue is, after all, money.  For example, consider:
First, let’s talk about Amy Baker who works in the New York/New Jersey area. Actually, I have talked about her plenty of times:

Amy Baker and Parental Alienation Syndrome: Is This What Scientific Research Looks Like? 

The Ever Expanding Parental Alienation Theory: Amy J. Baker’s Research Revisited 

Amy J. Baker and Parental Alienation: Behind the Veil of Ignorance 

According to Jamison’s article, Baker appears to think that parental alienation syndrome has been given a bad name because it has been misused in isolated instances. But on what evidence does she have to base such an opinion? ….

Then, she takes on Glenn Sacks’ logic (Perhaps a dubious undertaking, but at least someone did!)
Glenn Sacks, another PAS promoter quoted in Jamison’s article, states that courts are biased against fathers. Biased against fathers how? Maybe the rest of the sentence in the article was supposed to explain it:

“and are overly protective of moms and punitive of dads when handling abuse allegations”

So does he mean that family courts are biased against fathers in cases involving domestic violence? Many state gender bias taskforces have consistently found that the courts were biased against women. From where does Sacks get his information? This is the deliberate misinformation that father’s rights advocates use when speaking to the public. They use general statements like, the courts always award custody to moms, to hype up their support, without specifying or clarifying that 1. most men don’t “fight” for child custody and 2. most women are still the primary caretakers of children–thus it would make perfect sense that the majority of women “win” child custody. If the mom is “the real parent” it is usually quite obvious. Sacks also supports a presumption of joint custody in child custody cases when there is often no evidence of equal or shared parenting within the intact relationships (nor is proof required, or sought). The bias isn’t in the court’s decision making in this case, the bias is in the assumption that joint custody is always good for every child.
(Bias, my friend, is a buzzword….  It works, too — to distract from the issues)

Former judge DeAnn Salcido provides evidence of how the misogyny embedded in patriarchal thinking permeates the family court system–a system which unsurprisingly represents society’s attitudes at large:

I was basically told to be suspect of anyone claiming abuse,” she says. “I had senior judges telling me, ‘Be suspect. The dad probably has a new girlfriend, and the mom’s upset.'” The concept of parental alienation, she says, arose in private discussions “all the time” among court officials who espoused it.

And it is “professionals” like Amy Baker and spokespersons like Glen Sacks who continue to support this thinking with pseudoscience.

I thought the post was going to be about how Money helps Pedophiles & Batterers.  The discussion appears to have gotten instead  into logic and psychology vs. science — which, though obviously off, is not the underlying cause, I feel.
The same blog has, however, written plenty on the issue of the HHS involvement in custody cases, on other posts (search “OCSE” or “HHS” and find them).

READ THE COMMENTS TOO:

I’m linking to her discussion in part for the (voluminous) comments below it which DO talk a bit more about the financial issues, and after all, received a courtesy referral, which I do appreciate, at the end of the post:
Not to mention, how do you think all of this continues? Look at the universities and nonprofit agencies that support and employ these court players.  Look at the funding of these organizations. Our dear old tax dollars. See Let’s Get Honest for a wealth of money trail information.
Thanks for the link!
Here’s a sample from the comments, now that you mentioned the tax dollars:
lso Randi, remembering your fine post on Michael Hayes and the wonderful Texas Attorney General, I discovered exactly who is getting those access/visitation SUB-grants, and to an extent, how they are being used. Source: USASpending.gov.

Yes, exploring which Father’s Groups are getting how much of our (federal grants) money for which purposes is becoming REAL interesting.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
For example, when the Indiana Child Support Services site has a direct link to Fathers & Families and is soliciting FAF to apply for grants (so they can split some of the proceeds) — why bother to open it to the competition? Just set out a red carpet for a single group: here:

“Indiana Fathers & Families – http://www.in.gov/dcs/2461.htm

The Indiana Department of Child Services, Child Support Bureau, would like to welcome you to the Indiana Fathers & Families website.

Consider this post a place-holder, a review-time.  Again, our tax $$ are paying for Fatherhood Groups, and they are also paying for Domestic Violence Groups which don’t even talk about the tax $$ paying for the fatherhood groups, although the reverse is not true.  Read any comments-heavy article with both DV and FR participants, and you’ll find references to some “expert” and a lot of psychological hitch-hikers complaining loudly about VAWA (which was an Act of Congress) and saying nothing about the National Fatherhood Initiative (founded same year by cronyism among the Executive Branch – Health & Human Services — and a violation of the principle that we do NOT have a national religion, called “office of Faith-Based Initiatives.”
I mean, Wade Horn & Don Eberly (for starters).  And the financial conflicts of interest have been detailed plenty in there — google Bill Berkowitz, for some writing on this.  Progressive watch groups report on conservatives, and Conservatives report on Progressives.  I read them both….
This results in an uneven playing field — because the DV advocates make like they don’t even KNOW that the father’s rights groups have any funding behind them — or if so, it’s so vaguely referenced, no one pays much attention.  We are hear to change that — and challenge WHY these advocacy groups result in women less informed about the organizations behind the opposition to their safety, then men are about the opposition to their getting the government to reduce their child support arrears and get their kids away from whoever reported the domestic violence (or child abuse) to start with.
Last paragraph may not make much sense unless you’ve been following these things.  Better yet, read the post, and its comments below, hanging out on RandiJames.com for a while.  I’ve got some significant news percolating and about to boil over into a post sure to expose a few more hidden agenda (hidden in plain sight on the internet, for those who know how to look).

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

April 27, 2011 at 11:12 am

Posted in History of Family Court

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