Fathers Group Issues Report on Domestic Violence; Policies Exacerbate Child Abuse

“Misinformation” Campaign Cited in Domestic Violence Policies.

According to a new report by the by the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Government policies and campaigns to combat domestic violence and child abuse are based on faulty information.

The report, authored by ACFC President Stephen Baskerville, PhD., also claims that current government policies worsen child abuse.

The report, Family Violence in America: The Truth about Domestic Violence and Child Abuse, highlights the more contentious and conflicting scenarios, such as:

· Child custody disputes are probably the main engine driving both fabricated accusations of domestic violence and actual incidents.

· The main cause of child abuse is family dissolution, and family violence programs are likely contributing to the child abuse problem.

Domestic violence programs have become the subject of sharp criticism in recent months.

Studies from the Independent Women’s Forum and RADAR: Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting have challenged the accuracy of information behind current policies.

A Rutgers Law Review article by David Heleniak recently called domestic violence “an area of law mired in intellectual dishonesty and injustice” and a “due process fiasco,” identifying six major denials of due process in one statute.

The ACFC report goes further in suggesting that domestic violence allegations are driven primarily by child custody disputes and by suggesting that child abuse is made worse, rather than diminished, by current policies.

The Report comes as Congress is considering appropriations for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the principal Federal legislation that funds domestic violence programs nationwide. The Report is highly critical of VAWA.

Its findings also contrast somewhat with those of two recently published studies on family violence: “Child Maltreatment 2004,” issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, and Renee McDonald, et al., “Estimating the Number of Children Living in Partner-Violent Families,” Journal of Family Psychology, March 2006.