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False allegations levelled against men who are said to have sexually
abused their children have become the weapon of choice in custody battles following divorce and separation. |
In 1992, the Alberta Report newsmagazine, now the
Report, produced an article dealing with that issue. They have an
index of "classic" articles that they published
over the years. [Unfortunately, the Report ceased to be published, therefore its website no longer exists.
However, some of the articles from the former website of the Report are now
accessible as archived web pages.]
From that URL: August 17, 1992,
Getting rid of
Dad. Sexual abuse allegations in Alberta were soaring. The government knew that half of these were false, but it
was a delicate matter. They preferred to turn a blind eye rather than confront the reality that familiesthe
lives of fathers and childrenwere being shattered.
Have things become any better since
then? You be the judge. Read the
whole article.
Thanks to Louise Malenfant, Parents Helping Parents,
for pointing out the article.
The 1992 article from the Alberta Report, and also the Daily Herald article
shown in the associated text box, mention that about 50 percent of allegations of child sexual abuse are false.
Other things come into the picture.
The Ontario Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (OIS-3) identified that about 80 percent of
investigated child sexual abuse allegations against men were false (1994 data). The figures for substantiated cases
against men and women weren't that far apart. If you take into account that men are more likely than women to be found
guilty, it would follow that men and women are at the very least about equally likely to sexually abuse children.
If we ever come to look objectively at both sexes, it may well be that women will turn out to be more often the sexual
abusers of children, just as they are with other forms of physical child abuse. Women are seven times more often than
than natural fathers of children the perpetrators of other types of physical child abuse. That holds true with
respect to child murder and fatal child abuse. Why should child sexual abuse be a male-dominated monopoly? Why should
the proportions of the perpetrators of child sexual abuse differ so enormously for all other types of child abuse? It
stretches the imagination that the "facts" about child sexual abuse could possibly be correct.
The
proportion of false allegations against men should be of great concern. Consider that only about half of all allegations
are being investigated. It follows that the percentage of false allegations against men are substantially higher than
the numbers identified by OIS-3 would indicate.
In the end, for the vast majority of sexual abuse cases, it boils
down to that only the alleged abusers and their victims know for sure whether any abuse took place. The problem is that
children are in effect being put on the witness stand, often not until the children are able to produce the desired type of
testimony. Not all, but many children are being influenced to tell something that's not necessarily any or all of the
truth, often without even knowing what "reality" they are reporting. The absolute reality is that many men are
being wrongfully convicted of sexually abusing their children. However, wrong or not, convictions are considered to be
substantiated cases.
A BBC program on sexual abuse by children provided an estimate of perhaps as many as 35
percent of child sexual abuse of children being done by women, and that the reality may be worse than that. (BBC
Panorama (10 pm Monday 6th, October 1997) Child Sexual Abuse by Women. Researchers are now asking about child
sexual abuse by women, now estimated at 250,000 children, or 35% or more of all reported child sexual abuse. This
compares with the more openly admitted and traditional non-sexual abuse/neglect of children by women where the incidence
rate is about 60%.
Summary of program:
http://www.vix.com/menmag/panosumm.htm,
Full transcript: http://www.vix.com/menmag/panofull.htm
Furthermore, we do know that even perhaps as as many as 40 percent of men convicted of and serving time for rape
with aggravated assault were wrongfully convicted -- about 28 percent on the basis of DNA evidence.
FBI Rape Statistics and DNA Testing,
Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science: Case Studies in the Use of DNA Evidence to Establish Innocence After
Trial, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs
Full story
Many people say that children don't lie, and that children most certainly wouldn't lie about something as
important as being sexually abused.
If there are adults who will incriminate themselves with respect to things
they obviously didn't do, how much more likely is it that children can be made to believe that their fathers (most
often it is they who are accused of abusing them) sexually abused them.
Ceci and Bruck addressed the issue of
the reliability of child witnesses in their book "Jeopardy in the Courtroom." The book comes highly
recommended by people such as Maggie Gallagher: Anyone interested in the question of children and
"implanted" memories should consult: Stephen Ceci and Maggie Bruck, "Jeopardy in the Courtroom: A
Scientific Analysis of Children's Testimony," published by the American Psychological Association in 1995
(Ceci is a psychology professor at Cornell, Bruck is an associate professor of Psychology and of Pediatrics at McGill
University).
The ISBN is 1-55798-632-0. Copies may be ordered from
APA Order Department
P.O. Box 92984
Washington, DC 20090-2984
In the UK, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, copies may be ordered from
American Psychological Association 3 Henrietta Street Coven Garden, London WC2E 8LU
It appears that the APA is the only place where the book can be obtained. That is where my bookstore had to order
a copy for me.
The book exposes and discusses the whole wide range of the quality of child witnesses. Surely, some children don't
lie, but many of them tell something that is not necessarily the truth, something that they have come to accept as
the truth on account of various circumstances, although it very likely has little to do with reality.
You'll do yourself a favour if you read the book.
For more detailed information on child abuse refer to https://fathersforlife.org/Sodhi/fvcans1.htm,
and https://fathersforlife.org/Sodhi/fvcan2.htm#cnaonts
This www.dailyherald.com news story can be found at:
http://www.dailyherald.com/main_story.asp?intid=36962213#
Family law's nasty 'nuclear bomb' By David R. Kazak
Originally posted on March 12, 2001
Daily Herald Legal Affairs Writer
On a snowy evening in late November, Michael Reichart sat in the kitchen of his Arlington Heights home, rubbed his
temples and prepared for what he called "the onslaught."
The previous day in Tucson, Ariz., the FBI
had found Joli Taylor, Reichart's ex-wife, and the couple's only daughter, Alese. Together, the two vanished in 1991
when the girl was 5 years old.
Reichart knew this meant resuming his custody battle with Taylor, a battle she
laced with accusations painting Reichart as a sexual abuser of Alese.
Child welfare workers, police and medical
experts investigated each charge. And each conclusion was the same: No evidence of abuse.
Taylor's last accusation,
lobbed just before she disappeared, wasn't investigated. Reichart says it's as false as the others. Taylor's supporters
say it will be her vindication from felony child abduction charges.
"I'm going to have to go through it all
over again," Reichart said that snowy night. "All the ugliness, it will come up again.
"I'm not
afraid of her because I've withstood the onslaught before," he said. "I just don't want to go through it again.
" False allegations ruin lives False allegations levied during divorce or custody
battles reside in a dark, musty and controversial corner of family law. Without exception, they elicit disdain from
domestic law experts.
Steven N. Peskind, a suburban Chicago divorce attorney who handles cases in DuPage and Kane
counties, said the reason is simple: An allegation alone - regardless of veracity - holds incredible destructive power.
"It's the nuclear bomb of family law," Peskind said. "(Sexual abuse) accusations, even false ones, can
literally destroy people's lives. It's not a 'He'll get over it' sort of thing."
Round Lake resident Andrew
Panzica knows this firsthand.
When his ex-wife levied sex abuse charges against him during the final days of a
five-year custody battle, Panzica found himself criminally charged with sexually assaulting his own kids.
That was in 1999. Last week, a Cook County judge acquitted Panzica of the charges, but it didn't erase two years of
being "black-balled" by the community, Panzica said.
In fact, he said, he had to move from his Palatine
apartment because the landlord started receiving physical threats as soon as Panzica's name and address were publicized.
He hasn't had contact with his children in two years and knows the allegations will follow him into civil court if he ever
seeks any sort of visitation.
Panzica is also aware there will always be whispers behind his back from those who
think he's guilty. Accusations of abuse commonWhile most experts have a singular disgust
for false, custody-related sexual abuse allegations that turn out to be false, there's a vast gap in opinion about whether
false allegations are truly problems worth worrying about.
Some, including DuPage-based child psychologist Richard
DeLorto, say false allegations are becoming common in custody cases.
"The reality is, it's happening so much
you just don't know who to believe anymore," said DeLorto, a child custody evaluator and director and founder of the
Chicago Divorce Association.
DeLorto has testified in criminal and civil cases, providing supporting evidence for
accusers and defending those he felt were wrongly accused. But, he said, he always keeps the most important aspect of any
case - the child - foremost in his mind because as a child he was abused.
It's a point of view that drives him to put false accusations on par with actual abuse. What's worse, he said, is that
his view seems lost on parents who invoke these accusations with little or nothing to back them up.
"The attitude seems to be, 'As long as we can win, that's all that counts, and who cares what happens to the
child?'" DeLorto said.
Other experts, including Mark Parr, executive director of the Hoffman Estates-based Child Advocacy Center, which helps
local and state authorities investigate child abuse cases, have a more tempered view of whether false custody-related
allegations are becoming a problem.
False accusations coming from divorce and custody cases unfortunately do happen, Parr said, but they're not increasing
in frequency, as DeLorto thinks.
Also, he said, he questioned the term "false."
"Of the cases that are unfounded, I certainly think some were valid, only we weren't able to find evidence to
prove it," Parr said.
Both Parr and DeLorto placed a caveat on their thoughts. Their views come solely from their own experience and work
with the issue.
The reason they hinge their opinions on anecdotal evidence is because very few researchers have bothered to seek out
how often sexual abuse allegations are raised in divorce and custody situations, or how many times those allegations turn
out to be false.
The one research project on the issue that experts cite most often was conducted 13 years ago by the Association of
Family and Conciliation Courts in Denver.
After studying 9,000 contested custody cases, the organization flagged 169 - about 2 percent - in which one parent
levied a sexual abuse allegations during the proceedings. Of those, the study found, about half were substantiated. The
rest were classified as either false or unsubstantiated.
Without other solid research, the issue swirls in controversial stories and conjecture indicating false allegations
are much more frequent or much less frequent than the Denver study suggests.
"It's a mess," said Frank Sassetti, a psychologist who does custody evaluations for Cook County family court.
"It's not as clean cut as everybody would like."
Still, even if current research answered those questions, using statistics to define this issue could distract evaluators
and investigators from giving each allegation the attention it deserves, said the Advocacy Center's Parr.
What's important, he said, is ensuring that all allegations of custody-related sexual abuse are investigated thoroughly.
At the center, he said, that thoroughness is achieved by ensuring that any conclusions in an allegation investigation is
drawn by a group of experts, not just one person. That group will include police, state's attorneys and an advocate for the child.
Even if a child details some sort of abuse, Parr said, the disclosure will be scrutinized too.
"We have to know, do we really have a clear picture of what they're saying?" he said. "Is it really sexual
abuse? We have to make sure we're not erring on the side of accusing someone who's done nothing wrong."
Issue tough for judgesCriminal convictions require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But in civil
cases, including custody cases, the standard is much less. And that puts judges in a precarious position.
"(A sexual abuse allegation) is one of the toughest issues we deal with," said Judge Moshe Jacobius, who presides
over Cook County Court's domestic relations division.
"When an allegation arises - if all the judge has is the allegation - then the court has to weigh the possible harm to
the child with regard to the allegation."
That means an emergency request for termination of visitation could be granted and kept in place until the judge can gather
more evidence to make a solid determination, Jacobius said.
So judges will order evaluations. Both parents can hire their own expert evaluators. Sometimes, the Department of Children
and Family Services will evaluate the situation and weigh in, too.
But in the meantime, Jacobius said, everything else regarding the case stops.
"You have to wait and see what both sides have to say," he said.
Why parents lie about abuse
If the consensus is that false allegations of sexual abuse do happen in divorce and custody situations, then one question remains: Why?
Why would a parent levy a charge so horrible if it isn't true? Is it calculated? Is one parent teaching their child to
say something horrific against the other solely as a tactic to gain the upper hand in a custody battle?
"We always have to be cautious about a child making statements (of abuse), Parr said. "We have to be careful
about saying, 'This is a child who hasn't been coached.' "
David Royko, who directs Cook County Circuit Court's Marriage and Counseling Service, said he felt it was an extremely rare
instance where a false accusation is deliberate, but those that are can be rooted in revenge.
"The person feels so abused themselves because of the divorce, like they have been destroyed, that the next best thing
to killing the other person is to psychologically and publicly kill them," he said.
Judge Jacobius said he's presided over cases where he's ultimately determined that no abuse occurred. But he said he's never
made a finding where the allegation was deliberately false.
"In divorce, your world gets turned upside down," Sassetti said. "You have lawyers, judges, friends, all with
their own agendas, all weighing in with advice. Then, maybe, you see you're losing ground with your children, and you become very,
very scared.
"Then you see something, something that may be a normal thing for a child, natural sexual exploration, and you're scared,
and you start to see things that just aren't there."
Visit Suburban Chicago's Information Source at http://www.dailyherald.com |
See also the 2008 study report:
[US] Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: at least $112 billion a
year (with participation by Maggie Gallagher) |