NCJ Number
189022
Journal
Child Abuse Review Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Dated: March-April 2001 Pages: 113-124
Date Published
2001
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This Australian study weakens the misleading divorce and child abuse myth (child abuse allegations made during or after partnership breakdown are weapons fashioned to gain advantage in the marital war) that has been prevalent and assists in developing knowledge for professionals working with families in which the partnership has broken down and child abuse allegations are involved.
Abstract
The study was conducted in the Family Court of Australia. It analyzed the family court records of 200 cases in which child abuse allegations had been made. Some 150 cases came from the State of Victoria; they represented a random sample of one-third of such cases in an 18-month period in 1995-96 that presented to the Melbourne Registry. Another 50 came from the Australian Capital Territory; they represented all such cases during the same time period from the smaller Canberra Registry. Data from the case records covered the time period from when the child abuse was alleged to the time of the resolution of the dispute, either by the agreement of the parties or by a court judgment. The study findings render as myth the common belief that most, if not all, allegations of child abuse in partnership breakdown circumstances are false. On the contrary, the current study found that most allegations were not false. Only 9 percent of the allegations were found to be false. The profile of abuse was the same as that of abuse cases prosecuted in the State children's court, i.e., those cases that progress to the children's court when all other forms of service intervention have failed. The most common type of abuse was multiple forms of abuse. As a result of this study, a new specialized intervention program for children involved in residence and contact disputes where child abuse is alleged is being pilot tested in the Family Court of Australia. 22 references