Massachusetts Dad Reunited with his Son after Two Years
April 30, 2010
Just yesterday, I posted a piece about an Irish single father who lost his three children when their mother absconded with them to England. Under current Irish law, he, as a single father, has no parental rights, while she, as a single mother has complete parental rights. So when she took the children, she did no legal wrong and he has no legal recourse. Tough luck, dad.
Now there's this case in the United States (WNYT, 4/29/10). I wrote a piece about it last September here. Two years ago, Tina Helfer, the partner of Massachusetts single dad Richard Rodriguez (pictured with his son), took their son, Richard Jr., and disappeared. Rodriguez always thought she was in Kansas, because he discovered she had an internet boyfriend there. But he didn't know where. Two days ago, Ricky was found and now he's finally back home with his dad.
Richard Rodriguez described the first moments after he and his son reunited after more than two years.
"He immediately jumped up, ran right to me, started crying. Very touching, emotional moment," he said.
It's hard to call a man who's lost his child for two years 'lucky,' but that's what Richard Rodriguez is. That's because, (a) he found a dedicated fathers' rights attorney in Rinaldo Del Gallo and (b) his son's mother didn't show up for the custody hearing that Del Gallo obtained in February of 2008. Of course, since she had abducted the child, it's no surprise that she didn't return to the Bay State to contest the custody hearing. But because she didn't show, the judge had no choice but to grant Rodriguez custody of his son. If she had, Rodriguez would have had little chance of success.
When the boy went missing, Rodriguez says he was shocked to learn that because he wasn't married to his son's mother, she technically had custody.
Again, single mothers have parental rights automatically; single fathers have zilch.
But after the hearing, it took an outrageous 17 months for the judge to issue his order of custody. Why it took that long to issue a simple custody order is anyone's guess.
But once armed with the order, Del Gallo immediately set to work trying to get the boy's name placed on the state's Missing Child Registry. Incredibly, the police refused to do so, despite the fact that Rodriguez had a court order establishing him as the sole custodian of his son. Del Gallo fought with the police and DA's office for months trying to get them to do what the law plainly required them to do - list as missing a missing child.
Finally Jennifer Smith, the wife of Rodriguez' foster brother, took the bull by the horns. She sent fliers with Richard Jr.'s photo to every elementary school in Kansas. Within days, they knew the whereabouts of the boy and he was on his way home.
Is that the end of the story? Few people think so.
Rodriguez said he expects the mother, Tina Helfer, won't give up.
"I'm sure she's gonna try to come and get him back. All I want is make sure that he stays in my life," he said.
And Helfer? Will there be any consequences to her for her apparent act of parental kidnapping?
Berkshire County District Attorney David Capeless said the Helfer won't be charged in this case, because when she left Massachusetts with the boy two years ago, she didn't technically break any laws.
So there you have it. Again, as in Ireland, a single father has no parental rights simply due to the fact of his parenthood, but with a little luck and a good lawyer, he can still get custody. In Ireland, he can't.
But in Ireland, there's a bill before Parliament to give single fathers parental rights automatically at birth. There should be such a bill before every state legislature in this country, and they should be enacted into law.
Some 40% of children in this country are born out of wedlock. That means about 1.6 million children are at risk for losing their fathers, and a similar number of fathers are at risk for losing their children. If nonmarital childbearing is to be culturally acceptable - and it has been becoming more and more so for roughly the past four decades - then acceptance of the equal rights of single fathers must come as part of the package. If the stigma of nonmarital childbearing should be removed from mothers, the stigma of unmarried paternity should be removed from fathers as well.
Maybe Richard Rodriguez should be men's Hester Prynne.
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Czech Court Gives Boost to Fathers in Child Custody Matters
April 30, 2010
From Ireland we move to the Czech Republic where the Constitutional Court has just made a ruling that pushes fathers' rights in custody matters forward a bit. That's the good news.
The bad news is that Czech family law is now where U.S. family law was in the mid-70s. So the push forward brings them nominally into line with family law here and in the rest of English-speaking countries. I say 'nominally' because the fact that the court has made a ruling doesn't necessarily mean that family judges will change their ways. We've seen that in Australia, where the 2006 amendments to the Family Law Act resulted in little change in actual custody decisions.
In the Czech Republic, it's been the practice to award sole custody to mothers. That happens in about 90% of cases according to this article (The Prague Post, 4/28/10). Now the Constitutional Court has ruled that custody between parents is to be awarded on the basis of... drum roll...The Best Interests of the Child.
What that means is that fathers now have a leg to stand on in custody cases. They, like U.S. dads, Australian dads, Canadian dads, etc. can make the case that paternal involvement in children's lives promotes their best interests. To the extent they're convincing, they can get some time with their children. If a mother is clearly unfit, dad has a chance. Fine.
But if we know anything about family law, it is that the 'best interests of the child' is a fantastically elastic concept. It can mean virtually anything depending on the point of view/bias of the particular judge. And since judges now award custody almost exclusively to mothers, we know that they bring that particular bias to custody proceedings. Therefore, none of us will be surprised to learn at some future date that, despite the ruling of the Constitutional Court, patterns of custody awards haven't changed much in the Czech Republic. Dads will still be crying in the wilderness as more and more children are raised without them, or with them as only occasional presences in their lives.
As Aleš Hodina, who runs a website devoted to joint custody said,
"The position of a father seeking child custody is still very poor.
There is evidence that, in 90 percent of cases, children are given exclusively to mothers. The usual procedure is that a social worker or a judge will only look at the father's bad points and will overlook his good characteristics."
Actually, The Prague Post article says that it's worse than that. In 2008, fathers got custody less than 7% of the time. Joint custody was even rarer, being granted in just 3% of cases.
Attorney Tomáš Pelikán agreed with Hodina saying,
"Unfortunately, despite the Constitutional Court decision, in the short term, we will not see radical changes in the decision-making practices in the courts of first instance and district courts that decide on child-custody issues," said Prague-based lawyer. "The practices are mostly determined by judges, mostly female judges, who have an agenda."
It's the same thing we've dealt with for so long in many countries. Gradually the Czechs will take cognizance of the massive amount of sociology and psychology that establishes beyond serious doubt that children raised by two parents tend to turn out better than those raised by a mother or father alone.
Still, the president of the Constitutional Court emphasized that the Czech Republic is not entirely free to go its own way.
"A belief in court practices still persists that it is more appropriate for a child of an early age to be brought up by its mother," said Constitutional Court President Pavel Rychetský. "But law and international conventions, however, say something else. They say both parents have equal parental rights. It is not possible to prefer one or the other on the grounds of sex."
Well, it certainly is possible as millions of dads around the world can tell us. But the arc of family law bends towards fathers' rights to their children and children's rights to their fathers. Whatever else may be true, the Czech Constitutional Court's ruling attests to that.
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Irish Dad Loses Children to Move-Away Mom; Case Shows Need for Guardianship of Children Law
April 29, 2010
In March, I reported here on a bill before the Irish Parliament that would equalize the rights of single mothers and fathers in child custody (called "guardianship" in Ireland) matters. If passed, the Guardianship of Children bill would finally end the discrimination against single fathers that now exists. Put simply, an unmarried mother has full parental rights in Ireland; the unmarried father of her child does not. As it now stands, he must employ an attorney, go to court and apply for guardianship rights; no such onus is placed on her.
The Guardianship of Children bill would change that. It reads in part,
Subject to the subsequent provisions of this section, the father and mother of a child shall be guardians of the child jointly irrespective of their marital status.
There are exceptions for children conceived via rape (statutory or forcible) and incest.
Meanwhile, this article makes it abundantly clear why the Irish Parliament needs to pass the Guardianship of Children bill as soon as possible (Irish Times, 4/29/10).
An unnamed woman and man had a 10-year relationship. They have three children, aged two, seven and nine, but never tied the knot. So when she got mad at him last July, allegedly for being drunk while on childcare duty, she packed up the children and took them to England. He applied to the Irish courts for an order to get his kids back and, because he's unmarried and a man, was denied. The court explained that,
The mother’s removal of the children in July last year just weeks after terminating her relationship with the father did not breach his rights under Irish law and was not wrongful within the terms of the Hague Convention on Child Abduction and/or the relevant EC regulation (the Brussels Regulation), the judge ruled yesterday.
Her abduction didn't violate his rights because, as a single father, he had none. And the Hague Convention can only be used by parents who have rights of custody under the laws of their country of residence. In Ireland at present, single fathers have no such rights, absent a court order.
The Irish court recognized the woman's actions as "reprehensible." But under existing statutory law, it has no authority to order her to return to Ireland, or to order access to his children on the dad's behalf. Because the court clearly considers existing law to be ill-advised, it none too subtlely urged the Irish Parliament to pass the Guardianship of Children bill "to ensure the law evolves in such a manner as to keep pace with social change."
The "social change" referred to is the massive increase in nonmarital childbirth that's taken place in the past 40 years or so. In the U.S. some 40% of births are now to unmarried women which is about eight times the rate logged in the mid-sixties. Ireland tracks that trend closely; there, the rate of nonmarital childbirth rose from 5% of all births in 1970 to 32% in 2000.
Of course, just because a woman is single when she gives birth doesn't mean the father is as well, but it's very likely. So the issue of single fathers' parental rights is significant. In the United States, about 1.6 million children a year have fathers who are unmarried. Both the Irish Labor Party and the court in the case reported on recognize both the patent anti-father discrimination of the current law and its propensity for depriving children of their fathers. It's up to the Parliament to do something about both.
Interestingly, the article includes this little nugget towards the end:
The judge noted that the relationship improved for a time when the couple agreed to get married but that did not proceed after the woman later suggested the man was marrying her only to become joint guardian of the children.
So the man wanted to marry, the woman initially agreed, but later refused because she perceived that he only wanted to establish his rights to custody. Of course, given the state of Irish law, what father wouldn't want to do that? It's by far his best - and almost his only - way to establish his parental rights.
That's an important issue to understand; it takes two to marry. That means that in a country with laws like Ireland's, a mother holds considerable power over a single father's parental rights. If she agrees to marry, his rights miraculously spring forth like green plants in the desert; if she doesn't, it's his tough luck and that of his children. As we've seen so often before in the U.S. and elsewhere, the law places the parental rights of single dads squarely in the hands of the mothers who bear their children.
It's a situation that needs to change.
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The Many Constitutional Problems with State Child Abuse Registries
April 29, 2010
Back in March, I wrote a piece entitled, "Factually Innocent California Couple on Child Abuse Registry to Stay," about Craig and Wendy Humphries who were falsely accused of child abuse by their teenaged daughter. That accusation alone was enough to have the pair's names placed on the California registry of child abusers. Even though a court later found them to be "factually innocent" of any abuse, they discovered to their shock and dismay that the state legislature had provided no way for an innocent person to have his/her name removed from the registry. So there their names stayed. That was in 2001, and the Humphries have sued the state and county, won and had a federal court of appeals declare the law to be unconstitutional because it doesn't allow the innocent to have their names removed. Their case is now pending before the United States Supreme Court. And their names remain on the child abuse registry nine years after the fact.
Well, now it turns out that California is not the only state to infringe on the rights of its residents by means of its child abuse registry. This excellent article details several of the states' problems with their registries and how they got into such a patently unjust situation in the first place (Associated Press, 4/26/10). The reason for the article is the drive to establish a national registry that's bogged down of late, partly due to revelations about problems with state registries.
Essentially, the problems with the registries boil down to (a) how easy it is to get one's name on them, and (b) how hard it is to get it off. For example, in many states, a simple accusation is enough to have a person's name placed on the registry. Astonishingly, the accusation can come from anyone and need not be true. No criminal offense need ever be charged. In short, there's often no vetting procedure, so don't be rude to your neighbor or the clerk at the convenience store. They have more power over you than you realize.
As New York attorney Carolyn Kubitschek said,
"Anybody can call a child abuse hotline and report abuse — anybody, including your ex-spouse who hates you, your landlord who's trying to evict you."
And once authorities are notified of an accusation, the target's name is placed on the registry with no opportunity to defend him/herself. If that system sounds like it's a bit lacking in the due process of law department, courts tend to agree, as does the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Last year, the North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously invalidated the state's registry process for precisely that reason; it didn't give people an opportunity to contest the listing of their names.
In New York, the problem is slightly different. There, the state gives people a chance to contest their inclusion on the registry, but actually getting a hearing seems to be next to impossible. That's because, between 2001 and 2007, the agency often shredded letters requesting hearings or requests were prematurely terminated. So as many as 25,000 people are taking part in a class-action lawsuit demanding hearings to contest their inclusion on the state's registry. The state has agreed to provide hearings and to refrain from reporting to prospective employers that those requesting one are listed on the registry. But of course it'll take years for those hearings to take place, during which time employers will be left with no response whatsoever from the agency.
Meanwhile, attorney Thomas Hoffman, who's spearheading the class action suit says,
"At least 50 percent of the people who get a hearing are exonerated," Hoffman said. "There are a lot of people who don't belong there, and it's taking too long to exonerate them."
What's gotten us to this point is the hysteria about child abuse. The fact is that, as the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported only a few weeks ago, child abuse and neglect are down sharply from previous years. Of that, the vast majority of cases dealt with by child welfare authorities are ones of neglect, not abuse. Of course, neglect can be as injurious as abuse, but there's little real evidence to justify the type of wholesale denial of basic rights that the registry process so often entails.
As Missouri attorney Timothy Belz said,
"You can't find a lawyer or judge who isn't shocked. Yet you go to the legislature and it's like pulling teeth to get it changed. All it takes is one kid to get molested, one horrible story, and the legislators just go nuts. The legislature ought to require itself to cool off."
'Twas ever thus. States always expand their power and diminish the rights and liberties of their citizens while claiming to pursue the most virtuous of goals. John Stuart Mill saw the danger almost two centuries ago. Indeed, the idea of a child abuser registry properly done isn't necessarily bad. Such a registry could serve to prevent children's exposure to known dangers. But when states seek greater power, it should only come with firm due process requirements attached. That's one of the central ideas of our Bill of Rights. It's one state legislatures all too often ignore, which is why the Bill of Rights was written in the first place.
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The Many Constitutional Problems with State Child Abuse Registries
April 29, 2010
Back in March, I wrote a piece entitled, "Factually Innocent California Couple on Child Abuse Registry to Stay," about Craig and Wendy Humphries who were falsely accused of child abuse by their teenaged daughter. That accusation alone was enough to have the pair's names placed on the California registry of child abusers. Even though a court later found them to be "factually innocent" of any abuse, they discovered to their shock and dismay that the state legislature had provided no way for an innocent person to have his/her name removed from the registry. So there their names stayed. That was in 2001, and the Humphries have sued the state and county, won and had a federal court of appeals declare the law to be unconstitutional because it doesn't allow the innocent to have their names removed. Their case is now pending before the United States Supreme Court. And their names remain on the child abuse registry nine years after the fact.
Well, now it turns out that California is not the only state to infringe on the rights of its residents by means of its child abuse registry. This excellent article details several of the states' problems with their registries and how they got into such a patently unjust situation in the first place (Associated Press, 4/26/10). The reason for the article is the drive to establish a national registry that's bogged down of late, partly due to revelations about problems with state registries.
Essentially, the problems with the registries boil down to (a) how easy it is to get one's name on them, and (b) how hard it is to get it off. For example, in many states, a simple accusation is enough to have a person's name placed on the registry. Astonishingly, the accusation can come from anyone and need not be true. No criminal offense need ever be charged. In short, there's often no vetting procedure, so don't be rude to your neighbor or the clerk at the convenience store. They have more power over you than you realize.
As New York attorney Carolyn Kubitschek said,
"Anybody can call a child abuse hotline and report abuse — anybody, including your ex-spouse who hates you, your landlord who's trying to evict you."
And once authorities are notified of an accusation, the target's name is placed on the registry with no opportunity to defend him/herself. If that system sounds like it's a bit lacking in the due process of law department, courts tend to agree, as does the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Last year, the North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously invalidated the state's registry process for precisely that reason; it didn't give people an opportunity to contest the listing of their names.
In New York, the problem is slightly different. There, the state gives people a chance to contest their inclusion on the registry, but actually getting a hearing seems to be next to impossible. That's because, between 2001 and 2007, the agency often shredded letters requesting hearings or requests were prematurely terminated. So as many as 25,000 people are taking part in a class-action lawsuit demanding hearings to contest their inclusion on the state's registry. The state has agreed to provide hearings and to refrain from reporting to prospective employers that those requesting one are listed on the registry. But of course it'll take years for those hearings to take place, during which time employers will be left with no response whatsoever from the agency.
Meanwhile, attorney Thomas Hoffman, who's spearheading the class action suit says,
"At least 50 percent of the people who get a hearing are exonerated," Hoffman said. "There are a lot of people who don't belong there, and it's taking too long to exonerate them."
What's gotten us to this point is the hysteria about child abuse. The fact is that, as the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported only a few weeks ago, child abuse and neglect are down sharply from previous years. Of that, the vast majority of cases dealt with by child welfare authorities are ones of neglect, not abuse. Of course, neglect can be as injurious as abuse, but there's little real evidence to justify the type of wholesale denial of basic rights that the registry process so often entails.
As Missouri attorney Timothy Belz said,
"You can't find a lawyer or judge who isn't shocked. Yet you go to the legislature and it's like pulling teeth to get it changed. All it takes is one kid to get molested, one horrible story, and the legislators just go nuts. The legislature ought to require itself to cool off."
'Twas ever thus. States always expand their power and diminish the rights and liberties of their citizens while claiming to pursue the most virtuous of goals. John Stuart Mill saw the danger almost two centuries ago. Indeed, the idea of a child abuser registry properly done isn't necessarily bad. Such a registry could serve to prevent children's exposure to known dangers. But when states seek greater power, it should only come with firm due process requirements attached. That's one of the central ideas of our Bill of Rights. It's one state legislatures all too often ignore, which is why the Bill of Rights was written in the first place.
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The Many Constitutional Problems with State Child Abuse Registries
April 29, 2010
Back in March, I wrote a piece entitled, "Factually Innocent California Couple on Child Abuse Registry to Stay," about Craig and Wendy Humphries who were falsely accused of child abuse by their teenaged daughter. That accusation alone was enough to have the pair's names placed on the California registry of child abusers. Even though a court later found them to be "factually innocent" of any abuse, they discovered to their shock and dismay that the state legislature had provided no way for an innocent person to have his/her name removed from the registry. So there their names stayed. That was in 2001, and the Humphries have sued the state and county, won and had a federal court of appeals declare the law to be unconstitutional because it doesn't allow the innocent to have their names removed. Their case is now pending before the United States Supreme Court. And their names remain on the child abuse registry nine years after the fact.
Well, now it turns out that California is not the only state to infringe on the rights of its residents by means of its child abuse registry. This excellent article details several of the states' problems with their registries and how they got into such a patently unjust situation in the first place (Associated Press, 4/26/10). The reason for the article is the drive to establish a national registry that's bogged down of late, partly due to revelations about problems with state registries.
Essentially, the problems with the registries boil down to (a) how easy it is to get one's name on them, and (b) how hard it is to get it off. For example, in many states, a simple accusation is enough to have a person's name placed on the registry. Astonishingly, the accusation can come from anyone and need not be true. No criminal offense need ever be charged. In short, there's often no vetting procedure, so don't be rude to your neighbor or the clerk at the convenience store. They have more power over you than you realize.
As New York attorney Carolyn Kubitschek said,
"Anybody can call a child abuse hotline and report abuse — anybody, including your ex-spouse who hates you, your landlord who's trying to evict you."
And once authorities are notified of an accusation, the target's name is placed on the registry with no opportunity to defend him/herself. If that system sounds like it's a bit lacking in the due process of law department, courts tend to agree, as does the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Last year, the North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously invalidated the state's registry process for precisely that reason; it didn't give people an opportunity to contest the listing of their names.
In New York, the problem is slightly different. There, the state gives people a chance to contest their inclusion on the registry, but actually getting a hearing seems to be next to impossible. That's because, between 2001 and 2007, the agency often shredded letters requesting hearings or requests were prematurely terminated. So as many as 25,000 people are taking part in a class-action lawsuit demanding hearings to contest their inclusion on the state's registry. The state has agreed to provide hearings and to refrain from reporting to prospective employers that those requesting one are listed on the registry. But of course it'll take years for those hearings to take place, during which time employers will be left with no response whatsoever from the agency.
Meanwhile, attorney Thomas Hoffman, who's spearheading the class action suit says,
"At least 50 percent of the people who get a hearing are exonerated," Hoffman said. "There are a lot of people who don't belong there, and it's taking too long to exonerate them."
What's gotten us to this point is the hysteria about child abuse. The fact is that, as the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported only a few weeks ago, child abuse and neglect are down sharply from previous years. Of that, the vast majority of cases dealt with by child welfare authorities are ones of neglect, not abuse. Of course, neglect can be as injurious as abuse, but there's little real evidence to justify the type of wholesale denial of basic rights that the registry process so often entails.
As Missouri attorney Timothy Belz said,
"You can't find a lawyer or judge who isn't shocked. Yet you go to the legislature and it's like pulling teeth to get it changed. All it takes is one kid to get molested, one horrible story, and the legislators just go nuts. The legislature ought to require itself to cool off."
'Twas ever thus. States always expand their power and diminish the rights and liberties of their citizens while claiming to pursue the most virtuous of goals. John Stuart Mill saw the danger almost two centuries ago. Indeed, the idea of a child abuser registry properly done isn't necessarily bad. Such a registry could serve to prevent children's exposure to known dangers. But when states seek greater power, it should only come with firm due process requirements attached. That's one of the central ideas of our Bill of Rights. It's one state legislatures all too often ignore, which is why the Bill of Rights was written in the first place.
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The Many Constitutional Problems with State Child Abuse Registries
April 29, 2010
Back in March, I wrote a piece entitled, "Factually Innocent California Couple on Child Abuse Registry to Stay," about Craig and Wendy Humphries who were falsely accused of child abuse by their teenaged daughter. That accusation alone was enough to have the pair's names placed on the California registry of child abusers. Even though a court later found them to be "factually innocent" of any abuse, they discovered to their shock and dismay that the state legislature had provided no way for an innocent person to have his/her name removed from the registry. So there their names stayed. That was in 2001, and the Humphries have sued the state and county, won and had a federal court of appeals declare the law to be unconstitutional because it doesn't allow the innocent to have their names removed. Their case is now pending before the United States Supreme Court. And their names remain on the child abuse registry nine years after the fact.
Well, now it turns out that California is not the only state to infringe on the rights of its residents by means of its child abuse registry. This excellent article details several of the states' problems with their registries and how they got into such a patently unjust situation in the first place (Associated Press, 4/26/10). The reason for the article is the drive to establish a national registry that's bogged down of late, partly due to revelations about problems with state registries.
Essentially, the problems with the registries boil down to (a) how easy it is to get one's name on them, and (b) how hard it is to get it off. For example, in many states, a simple accusation is enough to have a person's name placed on the registry. Astonishingly, the accusation can come from anyone and need not be true. No criminal offense need ever be charged. In short, there's often no vetting procedure, so don't be rude to your neighbor or the clerk at the convenience store. They have more power over you than you realize.
As New York attorney Carolyn Kubitschek said,
"Anybody can call a child abuse hotline and report abuse — anybody, including your ex-spouse who hates you, your landlord who's trying to evict you."
And once authorities are notified of an accusation, the target's name is placed on the registry with no opportunity to defend him/herself. If that system sounds like it's a bit lacking in the due process of law department, courts tend to agree, as does the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Last year, the North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously invalidated the state's registry process for precisely that reason; it didn't give people an opportunity to contest the listing of their names.
In New York, the problem is slightly different. There, the state gives people a chance to contest their inclusion on the registry, but actually getting a hearing seems to be next to impossible. That's because, between 2001 and 2007, the agency often shredded letters requesting hearings or requests were prematurely terminated. So as many as 25,000 people are taking part in a class-action lawsuit demanding hearings to contest their inclusion on the state's registry. The state has agreed to provide hearings and to refrain from reporting to prospective employers that those requesting one are listed on the registry. But of course it'll take years for those hearings to take place, during which time employers will be left with no response whatsoever from the agency.
Meanwhile, attorney Thomas Hoffman, who's spearheading the class action suit says,
"At least 50 percent of the people who get a hearing are exonerated," Hoffman said. "There are a lot of people who don't belong there, and it's taking too long to exonerate them."
What's gotten us to this point is the hysteria about child abuse. The fact is that, as the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported only a few weeks ago, child abuse and neglect are down sharply from previous years. Of that, the vast majority of cases dealt with by child welfare authorities are ones of neglect, not abuse. Of course, neglect can be as injurious as abuse, but there's little real evidence to justify the type of wholesale denial of basic rights that the registry process so often entails.
As Missouri attorney Timothy Belz said,
"You can't find a lawyer or judge who isn't shocked. Yet you go to the legislature and it's like pulling teeth to get it changed. All it takes is one kid to get molested, one horrible story, and the legislators just go nuts. The legislature ought to require itself to cool off."
'Twas ever thus. States always expand their power and diminish the rights and liberties of their citizens while claiming to pursue the most virtuous of goals. John Stuart Mill saw the danger almost two centuries ago. Indeed, the idea of a child abuser registry properly done isn't necessarily bad. Such a registry could serve to prevent children's exposure to known dangers. But when states seek greater power, it should only come with firm due process requirements attached. That's one of the central ideas of our Bill of Rights. It's one state legislatures all too often ignore, which is why the Bill of Rights was written in the first place.
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The Many Constitutional Problems with State Child Abuse Registries
April 29, 2010
Back in March, I wrote a piece entitled, "Factually Innocent California Couple on Child Abuse Registry to Stay," about Craig and Wendy Humphries who were falsely accused of child abuse by their teenaged daughter. That accusation alone was enough to have the pair's names placed on the California registry of child abusers. Even though a court later found them to be "factually innocent" of any abuse, they discovered to their shock and dismay that the state legislature had provided no way for an innocent person to have his/her name removed from the registry. So there their names stayed. That was in 2001, and the Humphries have sued the state and county, won and had a federal court of appeals declare the law to be unconstitutional because it doesn't allow the innocent to have their names removed. Their case is now pending before the United States Supreme Court. And their names remain on the child abuse registry nine years after the fact.
Well, now it turns out that California is not the only state to infringe on the rights of its residents by means of its child abuse registry. This excellent article details several of the states' problems with their registries and how they got into such a patently unjust situation in the first place (Associated Press, 4/26/10). The reason for the article is the drive to establish a national registry that's bogged down of late, partly due to revelations about problems with state registries.
Essentially, the problems with the registries boil down to (a) how easy it is to get one's name on them, and (b) how hard it is to get it off. For example, in many states, a simple accusation is enough to have a person's name placed on the registry. Astonishingly, the accusation can come from anyone and need not be true. No criminal offense need ever be charged. In short, there's often no vetting procedure, so don't be rude to your neighbor or the clerk at the convenience store. They have more power over you than you realize.
As New York attorney Carolyn Kubitschek said,
"Anybody can call a child abuse hotline and report abuse — anybody, including your ex-spouse who hates you, your landlord who's trying to evict you."
And once authorities are notified of an accusation, the target's name is placed on the registry with no opportunity to defend him/herself. If that system sounds like it's a bit lacking in the due process of law department, courts tend to agree, as does the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Last year, the North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously invalidated the state's registry process for precisely that reason; it didn't give people an opportunity to contest the listing of their names.
In New York, the problem is slightly different. There, the state gives people a chance to contest their inclusion on the registry, but actually getting a hearing seems to be next to impossible. That's because, between 2001 and 2007, the agency often shredded letters requesting hearings or requests were prematurely terminated. So as many as 25,000 people are taking part in a class-action lawsuit demanding hearings to contest their inclusion on the state's registry. The state has agreed to provide hearings and to refrain from reporting to prospective employers that those requesting one are listed on the registry. But of course it'll take years for those hearings to take place, during which time employers will be left with no response whatsoever from the agency.
Meanwhile, attorney Thomas Hoffman, who's spearheading the class action suit says,
"At least 50 percent of the people who get a hearing are exonerated," Hoffman said. "There are a lot of people who don't belong there, and it's taking too long to exonerate them."
What's gotten us to this point is the hysteria about child abuse. The fact is that, as the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported only a few weeks ago, child abuse and neglect are down sharply from previous years. Of that, the vast majority of cases dealt with by child welfare authorities are ones of neglect, not abuse. Of course, neglect can be as injurious as abuse, but there's little real evidence to justify the type of wholesale denial of basic rights that the registry process so often entails.
As Missouri attorney Timothy Belz said,
"You can't find a lawyer or judge who isn't shocked. Yet you go to the legislature and it's like pulling teeth to get it changed. All it takes is one kid to get molested, one horrible story, and the legislators just go nuts. The legislature ought to require itself to cool off."
'Twas ever thus. States always expand their power and diminish the rights and liberties of their citizens while claiming to pursue the most virtuous of goals. John Stuart Mill saw the danger almost two centuries ago. Indeed, the idea of a child abuser registry properly done isn't necessarily bad. Such a registry could serve to prevent children's exposure to known dangers. But when states seek greater power, it should only come with firm due process requirements attached. That's one of the central ideas of our Bill of Rights. It's one state legislatures all too often ignore, which is why the Bill of Rights was written in the first place.
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RAND Studies Overseas Military Deployment’s Effects on Children
April 28, 2010
Research has begun to document the challenges faced by members of the U.S. military in deploying for war and reintegrating into life at home. But little is known about how wartime experience and parental deployments are affecting the children from military families. A RAND study commissioned by the National Military Family Association addressed this issue. The research is among the first to explore how these children are faring academically, socially, and emotionally during an extended period of wartime. Results show that children from military families studied may be experiencing above-average levels of emotional and behavioral difficulties, relative to national norms. Further, longer periods of deployment were associated with greater levels of challenges both during deployment and afterward.
That's from a description of a study conducted by the RAND research organization. It was done by RAND's Center for Military Health Policy Research, the fact sheet for which is here. The survey should be considered as a starting point for future research and not definitive regarding its various conclusions.
RAND researchers surveyed 1,500 military families that had had one or more parents deployed overseas in the past three years. Children surveyed were between the ages of 11 and 17 and were 53% boys. It was a telephone survey and its results were compared to those reported by representative samples of Americans generally. So questions yet to be answered include how the demographics of the RAND sample compare to those of the general population, whether the population that the RAND sample was compared to had experienced some form of extended parental absence, etc.
As I said, the RAND survey is a starting point. It suggests the need for more definitive studies.
What it found was that children with a deployed parent tend to exhibit higher levels of stress and acting out than do those in the general population. Further, the longer the deployment, the greater the levels of anxiety.
- Children in military families experienced emotional and behavioral difficulties at rates above national averages.
- About one-third of the children reported symptoms of anxiety, which is somewhat higher than the percentage reported in other studies of children.
- Self-reported problems varied by age and gender: Older youths and boys reported more difficulties with school and more problem behaviors, such as fighting; greater numbers of younger children (compared with older children) and girls reported anxiety symptoms.
Longer periods of parental absence tend to exacerbate the situation.
- Longer periods of parental deployment (within the past three years) were linked to greater difficulties in children's social and emotional functioning, at least based on caregiver reports.
- Deployment-related challenges varied by age and gender: Older youths experienced greater school- and peer-related difficulties during deployment; girls experienced greater difficulties during the period of reintegration than did boys.
- Children whose caregivers had better self-reported mental health were better able to cope with the deployment experience both during and after.
- Living on-base was linked with reduced difficulties both during and after deployment.
The report on the survey says that the Pentagon should consider the need for emotional/psychological support for children and spouses of deployed personnel.
I would add that laws are needed that prohibit family courts from penalizing deployed military personnel in custody decisions. If a child suffers emotional trauma from the fact of deployment (which is not hard to understand), the knowledge that the deployment can be used to remove that parent from the child's life in a custody contest, won't make matters any better.
The RAND study offers yet more backup for bills, some of which are already pending before state legislatures, that prohibit using military deployment to prejudice parents in custody matters.
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Pre-Election Special! Tories Promise to Make Anti-Male Policies Even Worse
April 28, 2010
Click here to read an excellent piece by one of GlennSacks.com's many readers (The Rights of Man, 4/26/10). It's posted on The Rights of Man blog site in the U.K. and reveals some things that were new to me.
As you probably know, there's a national election coming up soon in the U.K. and that means the Tories and Labor are trying to impress voters in all sorts of ways. That in turn means that we get an up-close and personal look at what they think impresses us. Sadly, it's often not very, well, impressive. Still, it's a learning experience and, as the Vicomte de Valmont once said (OK it was in a movie), "education is never wasted."
What I learned was that in the U.K. there's radical anti-male sex bias in pension law. Basically, women get to retire at age 60 on full pension while men have to wait until they're 65. Of course men in the U.K. on average live shorter lives than do women, so the total amounts received over the life of a pension will, on average, be greatly more for women than for men. Add to that the fact that, again on average, men work and earn more than do women and therefore pay more into the pension fund, and you have a truly radical disparity based solely on sex.
That apparently is absolutely fine with Labor, but the Tories have taken the bull by the horns. If elected, they promise, they will make some changes to this inequitable pension system. What do they promise to do? They promise to increase the male retirement age to 66 while leaving the women's at 60. That's right, they're going to make a bad situation worse, an anti-male law even more so. Thanks for nothing.
The piece on The Rights of Man site goes on to deal with other hot-button issues that the public is mulling over in the run-up to the election, but that's the one that got my attention.
Writer John Kimble briefly takes on the topic of "who's better for MRAs and FRAs, Labor or Conservatives?" That's something we see discussed, often heatedly, in this country, with Republicans and Democrats substituted for Conservatives and Labor. Kimble grapples with the problem and basically concludes that neither Labor nor Conservatives offer much of an understanding of the issues and even less of an inclination to deal with them. And again I say, the same pretty much holds in this country.
But there's a very simple reason for that. It's no mystery why neither major party in either country cares much about the legitimate issues we raise. To be blunt, politics is all about power, and so far, we haven't used ours. To only a very small extent, have we ever brought our power to bear on any politician. We've rarely if ever said "vote our way on such-and-such an issue or we'll destroy you come election time," and then gone out and done it. Until we organize around certain principles, make hard and fast demands on office-holders/seekers and back up our issues with money and votes, we're kidding ourselves that the political system would give us the time of day.
We have a huge amount of moral capital. There are a great many issues on which we hold the moral and intellectual high ground. And, as we used to say, "that and 25 cents will get you a cup of coffee." Office holders will start to care about our issues when we prove to them that they have to; until we do they won't and, in a democratic system, there's no reason why they should.
So the debate about Conservative/Labor or Republican/Democrat is just talk. When we start to bring power to bear on people in positions to do something about the many injustices we face, we'll start to see action, and political philosophies will have little to do with it. Right now we're doing a good job in certain state legislatures using strategy and moral suasion. At some point, though we're going to have to show that we can take someone down who doesn't vote the right way. I, for one, look forward to the day.
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