Documents Shed Light on Family Courts' Soft Stance Toward Abuse

• I cannot believe that your post was written by a woman.  I have never heard anyone speak like that before.  Believe it or not, DV and abuse happens in wealthy and educated homes as well as uneducated people's homes.  The men are charming and loving, and, after the wedding, or baby, (when the partner is dependent), all of a sudden they start the abuse.  Can be small at first, jsut putting them down, or checking up on them, or losing it verbally, then they say sorry & make it up to them.  The woman (or child) think everything will be fine because the abuser has said that they were so sorry, then they are wary for a while.  When the victims start to feel like they can trust them again, and relax or start acting happy, then, wham, the abuse starts again.  The victims lose confidence in themselves, self esteem and have all sorts of physical and mental problems from being verbally, financially, emotiomaly and/or physically abused.  It makes it so much worse when children are involved as more often than not the woman is financially dependent or, as in one of the cases stated above, she had to work to support herself & the baby while the husband was on "disability" pension, so he got half custody.  I only hope Elizabeth that you or nobody you know suffers abuse at the hands of someone else, but, by the sounds of it, it is more likelly that you would be a bully yourself to speak like that about other human beings.  I hope you are not in some kind of service industry where you deal with people who are more worse off than yourself.

• Liora, I’m not clear on your point. I agree that different people have different concepts of what constitutes abuse. But, you also seem to be implying (1) that I am defending my own abusive acts, and (2) that women have stricter standards than men of what constitutes abuse. I totally disagree. For example, you say pointedly to me: “What you have to ask is if the woman that is the recipient of your behavior finds your treatment acceptable. If she's saying "no", "stop it", "leave me alone" - guess what? You're violating her and "abusing" her....” I find your assumption to be very sexist. It is true that I have been accused of abuse (and, as is automatic, a restraining order was issued and was used as amunition to keep my son from me), but there was no truth and no evidence of truth. Indeed, the most serious accusation (that I came to her home and threatened her with a gun) was disproved by half a dozen affidavits establishing that I was at a business meeting several miles away. In contrast, I went to the police on two separate occasions while still bleeding from this same “victims” assaults. She did not deny inflicting the injuries and the police literally laughed at her everchanging excuses for what happened. But, no legal action was ever taken against her. As to your claim that men and women have different standards, it seems more dependent on the target than on the perpetrator. In other words, the double standard which researchers find is that the same behavior which is considered abusive when done to a woman is considered benign (or even humorous) when done to a man.

• Equalist, I have suggested reading for your point of view. Lundy Bancroft wrote a book called, "What Does He DO That?", and he talks about abusers and their self perception as "abusers". Every single person has a threshold of violence or retaliation that they self define as 'acceptable'. So, they tend to see other abusers with higher thresholds of violence as the "real abusers", and that they have been misunderstood or falsely accused. What you have to ask is if the woman that is the recipient of your behavior finds your treatment acceptable. If she's saying "no", "stop it", "leave me alone" - guess what? You're violating her and "abusing" her when you refuse to stop. Some people may feel that yelling, name calling and emotional attacks are not "abuse". Others do. Some people feel that a slap is not out of bounds. Some feel that anything short of hospitalization is ok. Bancroft asked abusers questions to determine what they saw as acceptable. The man that pushed a pregnant woman on the ground claiming his "anger was out of control" was asked "Wow, once you had her down on the ground why didn't you just kick her in the stomach???" The man was horrified, and said "What kind of person do you think I am?" The point is this - he was not 'out of control' - he simply felt entitled to push her to the ground, and his threshold of violence simply did not include kicking a pregnant woman in the gut. But plenty of other abusers do. Society, and women, as a whole find neither acceptable. I think it's really important for men that are accused of being abusive to figure out what society's standards are - not their own - and adapt to those standards and quit making excuses for themselves.

• Please define "we." Licensing the "breeders" implies someone to give that license. License people breeders, declaring that they (not you, of course) are "animals" or support the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and the Constitution which say the opposite. Sooner or later when independence and protest and of course conflict has been "bred out" of the breeding stock, who knows whether the particular profile that matches YOU will become undesirable breeding stock. Then, who is going to take up the banner of freedom to save your ass? Declaration of Independence (pls review) vs. breeder licensing; that's a slave -holder mentality. Now, yes, I do realize that some who signed the Declaration of Independence (and none were women) held slaves. However, since then both slaves (male) and women (all breeds with citizenship) got the vote. Obviously something has to give -- either the concept of innate superiority based on race, gender, or breeding -- (for how that spins out, see Holocaust, or Rwanda, or books such as 1984, Brave New World, Animal Farm, etc.) -- or the concept of principles of liberty, individual choice with responsibilities for those choices, and collectively submitting ourselves to written documents that embody those principles. If you think in terms of People pedigree (superior/ inferior -- of course to call who's who would imply you are in the "superior" breeding stock, or a product of them) you should be also capable of understanding the pedigree of ideas and principles -- equally important, if not more important to the human spirit. If you treat and think of people as dogs, there are possible responses. They may begin to act like dogs, or they may turn and protest, biting you. Again choose one. That comment was seriously deranged in "pedigree," but very close to the truth of what's going on in the family courts, attempting to eradicate "conflict" (i.e., protest against wrongdoing) from the populace, and make sure that parents who protest such wronggoing are not able to transfer such dangerous concepts to their offspring.

• We are not hope-mongers around here, but anyhow, Julia, thank you for your Blog. (though i really don't know what you see in the PMA, whose logo is all over it). Thank you for your wordpress site posting articles like this that point out conflict of interest as on Feb. 24 of this year, "brooklyn-family-court-asher-white-henna-white-ohel-family-services" (part of post name): CONFLICT OF INTEREST? ASHER WHITE REPRESENTING OFFENDERS OF HENNA’S DV CLIENTS Posted by calany on February 24, 2011 · Leave a Comment After learning of a several cases in Brooklyn, The Awareness Center and the Coalition Against Legal Abuse have joined forces to insure that the Brooklyn Family Court system is safe for survivors of domestic violence, sex crimes and other types of abuses. Yesterday, attorney Asher B. White, attempted to represent a man who’s wife and children are alleged victims of domestic violence. Only problem Asher White's wife was working for a different agency, ultra-orthodox Jewish, and possibly compromising confidentiality. CALNY out'ed them, I gather: "Throughout the evening both parents and teens were encourage to bring allegations of both sex crimes and domestic violence directly to Henna White’s office at the District Attorney’s office of Kings County – instead of going to a legitimate rape crisis center, domestic violence center, or directly to the Brooklyn Police Dept. Ms. White acts as the liaison and victim advocate for the Jewish ultra orthodox community. According to recent investigations, Ms. White has been providing confidential information to her defense attorney husband Asher White, who then uses the information to protect the alleged offenders, leaving those who have been victimized out in the cold. {{Victims, you are forewarned! This happens throughout the system!}} David Mandel promoted himself as an expert in sex crimes. Mr. Mandel is the CEO and spokesperson of Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services. Mandel does not have a clinical degree, yet promotes himself as an expert in cases of abuse and assault. His education is in business." (Site -is wordpress, domain "CALNY") Conservative religious groups, whether Muslim, Jewish, or Christian, tend to have abominable records on prosecuting criminal actions against women and/or children. Also, thank you for posting the Youtube on Stephen Doyne and Zoe D Katze (a feline custody evaluator) ... (your March 2, 2011 post on the blog) The article says Doyne has done about 3,000-4,000 custody evaluations. One resume I saw of another Psy.D." boasted a lot of seminars in which Doyne was one of the faculty. Unbelievable. Anyhow, Ms. Julia, please start to include a few posts about the role of the AFCC and CRC in setting up the court systems. Please go from posting and "hoping" to understanding and acting. Thanks.

• Why is it the woman's responsibility to not be abused more than the man's responsibility to simply stop committing misdemeanor or felony domestic violence against her? You think women LIKE being used for brood mares? What kind of perverted logic is that? Who "bred" you? Are you thankful to be alive? Are you somehow superior to anyone else who has had marital problems? Wow.... The U.S. Penal code puts the responsibility on not committing crimes on individuals. That means an individual who commits a crime could be prosecuted by the State for committing it. How is it you reverse that and say it's the woman's fault for having allowed a crime to be committed against her? Please explain who this philosophy would work in the case of drive-by shootings. Is it the victims' fault for having chosen to live in that neighborhood? In Oakland, CA, at the Piedmont Avenue Piano Store a young boy was shot and paralyzed when someone across the street attempted to rob a gas station, and the stray bullet went through the walls. What's your lecture on that situation? ??? Change your attitude, and are you female? Good grief!

• Your conclusions are wrong because you have cherry-picked the "mistakes." What about the millions of children and fathers whose parental relationships have been harmed by "mistakenly" taking a lying woman's word for it and granting needless restraining orders and supervised visitation? This article is one-sided propaganda, masquerading as journalism.

• I imagine that you might blame a raped woman ,for having gone into her garden to gather some flowers. She should have recognized the signs that her neighbour was going to rape and beat her.Your comment indicates a tragic lack of knowledge about this sad topic.

• I wonder if you have ever been in an abusive relationship and or had domestic violence in your family as a child? If you have not, you have no right to accuse anyone of the "warning signs!" These people that abuse, are very good at manipulation, sometimes it takes years before these signs of abuse come to a head. I have been through domestic violence in my family, and through a custody battle with my parents and years ago no one asked the questions on signs of abuse. Now finally we have advocates and associations that help get the voice out to victims and their families. I guess to you think I am stupid for marrying an abusive partner and went through that, also. If it was not for me getting away from my ex-husband one morning, I got a DWI leaving my abuser and placed in jail for the very first time in my life at 34 years old, speaking to my probation officer about my abuse, I would not be here today talking to you! Please feel free to comment on this. Maybe I could shed some light on what I experienced with you.

• I replied (apologizing for the Nevada County Oversight) probably a week ago to this comment. I notice my reply was not posted, and another reply to a comment above went immediately to "moderation." FixBrokenCourts assumed I "trashed" the author (who I don't know personally) rather than the reporting. There are serious omissions in this, disturbing to someone who has been stuck in the court system for years, a situation that makes retaining employment and other professional relationships almost impossible. This type of questioning and critical thinking (not just complaining) has led to some very solid leads in WHY the courts operate as they do, as has been demonstrated in the counterpart, LAWeekly -- from the same state. Court practices and government practices do not differ that much from Southern to NOrthern CA, and we could learn from that example

• The entire system needs abolishing until they devise a way to truly protect the child. Remember, psychology is based on pseudoscience and not proven theory. They cannot prove anything and try their darnest in their claims based on observation and evaluation. But that science is totally unreliable. You can always check to see if a child had been raped, but the states just don't want to go through the trouble, they can always ask the child, but then claim they are coached, they can always do a lot of things to make the case run through stumbling blocks, a apattern all too common nationwide. Their decisions are usually based on the maximum income generating for the agency itself in collusion with partnering agencies. This is worse than a well run mafia using the legal system to commit white collar and high crimes against the citizens of the United States of America. Criminal and inhumane crimes against the citizen's children by these so called quacks and so forth. There is no science that can support any form of drugging of any chlild as you will see. There are side effects listed with each drug. But those are not side affects, those are the devestating effects of the drug being induced upon America's children. Well families you can always look up Josie Perez if you want any additional philosophical views and i challenge some of these so called medical experts in their own field as well. I hope they passed their licensing before questioning me. I have seen and taken their exams and as i stated before, there is no scientific backing nor research to go along with that atypical you are shoving down your child's throat, it can very well be poisonous.

• I really don't see how spending the amount of money required by the "advocates" would change the basic fact that we should start to license the breeders. After all, it's clear that these folks would have done the gene pool a favor by not breeding, and we're already broke paying for the schools that can't make all children above average, no matter what we spend. No, the problem is not "the system" it's the breeders themselves. It's time for women to stop buying into the nonsense that they should breed, when in fact, they can't even find a mate who won't harm them. Come on now, I've never heard of a single case where a man "went bad" all of a sudden, there are always plenty of warning signs some women are just too stupid to heed.

• Beautifully said - many of us have had to suffer in silence since speaking out could invoke judicial retaliation and upsetting the applecart for all the court appointees.....

• Ahem, to answer your question above- if you bother to read the article carefully, you will see that the mediator in Nevada is in fact a Californian, working in Nevada County, California. You clearly haven't been "up in this neck of the woods" very long if you don't know that Nevada County is a California county. It's always best to read the article carefully before trying to trash the author! You've clearly stuck your foot in your mouth in a big way here. Who's ashamed for our neck of the woods now... we have higher standards for comments than this one you've posted in haste here.

• Thank you Mr. Jamison for reporting about the national family court crisis when many of your collegues will not touch this subject with a ten foot pole. I hope your reporting of the tip of this iceberg will be the spark that prompts others to do what they should have done years ago.

• Wow -- all those catch-phrases indicating the family courts meant well, but made mistakes - they didn't have enough provisions (appoint more personnel, send more money, that will help, surely), and it was just feuding ex-spouses. I have a question -- what's the Nevada mediator case doing in an article about California Family Courts? Where's the connection in that one? (I can hazard a guess). I thought the SF Weekly specialized in real investigative reporting (and not just reading others' previous reports, framing them in the same language, and posting them) and ALTERNATE news. How much would it cost or who must one know to get some of the viewpoints in the (400+) comments in the main article into an actual post? Where's the SF version of "Ron Kaye in LA" -- who actually did some fantastic reporting on the operations of the ripe-for-investigation governmental inbreeding in Southern CA? I heard these two weeklies were related. He even showed readers right on-line how to request vendor payments, technical how-to for monitoring one's own government. I'm ashamed for my neck of the woods up here! Surely any region housing Berkeley could get to the bottom of such things.

• Thank you for your work and for getting this information out!!

• Thank you for your work and revealing this truth so many mothers across America live with. Watching our children crushed not just by DV & sexual abuse...but then again by the system established to protect, failing and reabusing.

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