Critique of Judges’ Guide on Custody

I’ve already told you about the Judges Guide for contested custody cases with domestic violence present. Here’s a thoughtful critique of it from Joan Zorza in Washington, D.C. You can check out all her work at her web site.

Zorza praises the guide for describing key behaviors of domestic violence perpetrators, for recognizing and describing the limited expertise of many mental health professionals for dealing with domestic violence, and the need to make the safety of domestic violence victim the primary consideration. She criticizes it, however, for embracing the “family dynamic” approach to domestic violence.

This was new information to me, so it may be for you as well. Zorza criticizes the Judges’ Guide for failing to note research indicating that men who abuse their intimate partners are 6.5 to 19 times more likely than other men to commit incest with their children.

Zorza credits the Guide for stating that PAS is not widely accepted within the scientific community but complains that the Guide then sinply reinvents it as Parental Alienation, and then coaches custody evaluators and judges about how to get around court rules making evidence of it inadmissable.