Arlena Lindley V.

A state that undertakes custody of a child is declaring that it can do a better job providing protection. This system is a powerful agent of support, providing positive nurturing environments that enable a child to reach his or her potential. Nonetheless, when children suffer additional abuse in the system, this government intervention should be questioned.

At 8 years of age, he displayed encopresis, beating his head on tables, and displayed aggression by striking others. The boy identified his father as the offender of sexual exploitation, and reported him to law enforcement. There was medical evidence of abuse, and there was three to four reports made. Nevertheless, based the assessor’s report, the court of law placed solitary physiological custody to the father. The court ignored the medical proof of exploitation, which contained cigarette scorches, and the child’s requests to be placed with his mother were denied. The boy was remanded to his mother. The boy has few visits visitation with mother, and the boy’s lawyer did not persist the boy’s desires. This sounds so familiar after reading the story of Beth and Sam. The boy suffered sexual coercion and rape since they are 3 to 4 reports, and the child is treated as if his opinions and viewpoints do not matter. It seems the interview of a child should be conducted in expectation of a legal debate, and the attorney acted against the child and mother’s necessities. It would seem the boy was judged as not competent or

Adriana, a 24 year old single mother in New York, found herself in a Brooklyn shelter for domestic violence victims with her infant daughter, not yet two. The separation from her abusive boyfriend left her with nothing. “I was trying to get a job, trying to get my life together,’’ she says. On the night of March 18, Adriana asked a friend to watch her daughter while she picked up some diapers from Target, but as she left the shelter, a staff member called the police since it was past curfew. Adriana was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, and the bail was set at $5,000. The prosecutor cited a history of violence and abuse, but failed to see that her boyfriend was responsible for the charges. Unfortunately, due to

The FLAct 1975 places the best interest5 of the child as paramount to any decision made concerning the parental responsibility for children and endeavours to place primary considerations towards the child’s right to maintain a meaningful relationship with both parents and the need to protect the child from harm. This notion creates fairness, equality and enforceability, as evident in the case Neville & Neville [2007] FamCA 19 as the court took into account the child’s views which were “strongly [in] favour [with the] mother’s proposal”. However, the law is only effective to a moderate extent because it cannot always simultaneously uphold both considerations. This is evidenced in the article, “Father Jailed for Bashing Partner Granted Access”6 as a father who was violent towards his partner and held a samurai sword to their daughters throat was still allowed weekly access to their child. This was due to the family court judge’s discretion, who believed that “the terrifying domestic violence case did not constitute a ‘change in the family dynamic’”. Whilst this case allowed the child to maintain a relationship with both parents, exposed the child to a violent parent and potential harm, thus disregarding the best interest of the child. Furthermore, another criticism of the court not upholding the best interest of the

In her article, “Parent Trap: Are False Abuse Charges a Common Tactic in Child Custody Battles?”, Cathy Young addresses the issue of child custody disputes in relation to the gender wars. She begins with laying out the two differing views of false abuse cases: feminism versus father’s rights activists. Young states that, “Both sides in this controversy--the feminists and the fathers' advocates--see wrongdoing, arrogance, and abuse of power by the courts and the social welfare agencies... Although there seems to be no good alternative to government power in these cases, public scrutiny can be a check on the judges and social workers. But if this scrutiny is based on women good/men bad gender politics, it will hurt parents and children alike

The next thing the book talks about is the involvement of the police at the point where the women tried to get help. The statistics in this book are mind boggling and astounding when it comes to the action of the police in the event of spousal abuse. Some of the officers see so many accounts of spousal abuse that they right it off as routine and do not even report what they find. The officers also fail to tell women their options and information on how they can protect themselves from there batterer even

“ when a child is the victim of abuse or neglect, it is the responsibility of each child protective service and criminal justice communities to provide a timely and appropriate response” (Ells, "Forming a Multidisciplinary Team to Investigate Child Abuse" 1-23). The lack of communication and coordination among those services in the investigations of possible abuse is appaling, and should not exist because if they are suppose to protect children from abuse why did they not investigated the possible child abuse in the Wiggens vs.Smith. In the case files it states that the partitioners mother was a chronic alcoholic and frequently left him and his siblings alone for days and force them to beg for food and eat paint chips. Her abusive manner would include beating the children, having sex in the same bed as the children while they they slept and foring their hands on a hot stove burner, an incident that lead to the partitioners hospitalization. “ At the ahe of six the petitioner was placed in foster care ,the petitioners first and second foster mothers abused physically” ("WIGGINS v. SMITH").

Both sectors address the issues with the victims rather than addressing them with the batterers. Children are removed from their homes under the pretense that foster care would do less damage than staying with their non-abusive mother. I would argue that the current state of the civil and criminal legal systems and the lack of funding and lack of education regarding domestic violence within social services, are doing nothing short of re victimizing the victims. The systems need clear definitions of law and understanding of the realm of domestic violence in its entirety. These women aren't given viable options to escape their abusive homes, yet due to the societal construction of motherhood, they are held strictly liable for abuse suffered by their children, and for their own abuse being witnessed by their

At the societal level, the established laws and policies in relations to domestic violence may in fact fail to protect the victim and consequently re-victimize her. For example, domestic violence victims are increasingly being charged for “failure to protect” even when the partner is abusing the child and the mother (Beeman, Hagemeister, & Edelson, 1999). In addition, some states have considered legislation that makes a child’s witnessing of domestic violence a form of criminal abuse

After reviewing the article, “What Do Battered Women Want? Victims’ Opinion on Prosecution” written by Sara Hare, discusses mandatory sentencing for individuals who commit domestic violence offenses. But looking from a victims’ point of view, do they really want to put their abuser behind bars? The article tends to favor the choice of women in this situation. Regarding whether or not if she would like to prosecute her abuser, or holdback of pressing charge. This largely discussed because domestic violence cases rarely result in a conviction of the offender. The abuser may be someone the victim loves, so they would rather use their own discretion whenever is comes to sentencing. Retaliation from prosecuting may also stop a victim from filing charges, because they may be fearful of what their abuser is capable

Every minute twenty four people are victims of abuse in the United States, that’s more than 12 million women a year. People seem to wear a mask until they are behind closed doors. Abuse has affected the victim and suspect both and there are many reasons for everything.

In November of 1987, Joel Steinberg and his common-law wife Hedda Nussbaum, were arrested for the beating death of their illegally adopted 6 year old daughter Lisa. Examination of Nussbaum by physicians and psychiatrist’s revealed that she had been severely abused both mentally and physical by Steinberg for at least twelve years. Nussbaum was never indicted for Lisa’s death due to the fact that the prosecutor felt that she could not be held accountable. Hedda Naussbaum sat on the witness stand during the nationally televised murder trial with her “shattered face and detached demeanor” (Jones, 1997). Nassaubaum “became a symbol of Domestic Violence and America’s conflicted feelings about battered woman” (Jones 1997). Naussbaum told a NYC

These women were not only sexually abused, but some were harassed and forced to say they took part in a drug cartel. It is already shocking to hear about someone being sexually abused. To add more fuel to the fire, there is also women who have been electro-shocked, touched and groped, and beaten. These women may be criminals, but they are still human beings. No human deserves such harsh treatment, no matter what sinful act they may commit.

Women should be tried the same for their sexual abuse crimes because they are not different from male abusers. Back in before modern age, men were the predators and women were the gatherers. The woman’s place was the home to nature and care for her family. And still, the idea that females are incapable

Many children are forced to live with domestic violence because one of their parents refuses to leave the relationship. In cases of women being victims of domestic violence and failing to leave the male offender, the women are also identified as offenders and are charged with failing to protect their children from avoidable harm, regardless of the limited choices they have (Friend et al., 2008). Although domestic violence occurred in 35% of the 1,248 substantiated incidents of child maltreatment, only 31 couples were investigated for exposing a child to domestic violence or not protecting their children from the violence (Coohey, 2007). In Minnesota the parent is said to endanger the child’s mental or physical health when the child is exposed to domestic violence. When police are contacted about a domestic violence incident the investigators need to consider all types of failure to protect the child, as well as the likelihood of a domestic violence incident occurring again (Coohey, 2007). In order to determine if the children will be exposed to domestic violence in the future, the investigator needs to consider many variables. Such variables include a history of domestic violence and other types of child maltreatment, a willingness by the perpetrator to change his or her behavior, and if the perpetrator has the ability to change. Domestic