Family Rights and Child Abuse News

Child custody and divorce rates - a study with statistical graphs

by Richard Kuhn and John Guidubaldi, D.Ed.

This paper compares divorce rate trends in the United States in states that encourage joint physical custody (shared parenting) with those in states that favor sole custody.

States with high levels of joint physical custody awards (over 30%) in 1989 and 1990 have shown significantly greater declines in divorce rates in following years through 1995. Divorce rates declined nearly four times faster in high joint custody states, compared with states where joint physical custody is rare.

proactive-coach.com

October 23, 1997

Fixing The System

by Margot Hornblower

In the sordid underworld of sunny Los Angeles County, where 40,000 children have been removed from their violent, neglectful or drug-addicted families, the pink-stucco True Way Baptist Church may well be a station on the road to salvation.

Just ask Delores Mayes, 28, whose children were seized and placed in foster homes when her crack habit got out of hand. Faced with losing them for good, Mayes entered a detox program for six months but had nowhere to take them when she emerged. That is when the church, under contract to the county, stepped in: its outreach workers found her housing and furniture.

Time Magazine

December 11, 1995

CPS ineptitude plays large role in lives of two families

by Shawn Vestal

In April 1987, twin sisters were born to a family living in rural Stevens County. The following November, a brother was born.

Even before that time, the state agency charged with protecting Washington's children knew that their mother had "a founded history of abusing and neglecting her other children," according to a lawsuit the state recently settled.

spokesman.com

September 26, 1995

Wade tells Senate panel of his life of 'literal hell'

by Dori Meinert

In emotional and often tearful testimony, James Wade told a Senate subcommittee that San Diego County social workers destroyed almost three years of his life.

Wade, wrongly accused of the 1989 rape of his then-8-year-old daughter, said his life and that of his family were turned upside down.

electpd.org

May 26, 1995

Wade Dismissal

by Jim Okerblom and John Wilkens

Court exonerates father at long last - Charges of raping daughter are dropped -- after 2 1/2 years.

Without a word of apology or regret, the district attorney's office dropped criminal charges against a San Diego Navy man who was falsely accused of raping his own daughter.

electpd.org

November 16, 1991