From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Newsgroups: alt.child-support
Subject: Re: Something for nothing
Date: 24 Jan 93 07:07:50 EST
Organization:  Wright State University 

In article <5BkuXB2w165w@dogear.spk.wa.us>, bobk@dogear.spk.wa.us (Bob Kirkpatrick) writes:
> beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver) writes:
> 
>> gslars@staff.tc.umn.edu (Greg Larson) writes:
>> 
>> >Of course, there are cases where fathers exhibit violence against
>> >their wife or children, so in those cases visitations must be restricted
>> >or eliminated alltogether.  (And please don't infer that I suspect
>> >you to be a violent sort of person.)
>> 
>> Yes, and an equal number of women exhibit violence against their
>> children, so in those cases custody and visitation by women must 
>> be restricted or eliminated altogether, right?
> 
> I ran across this while doing some file searches the other day. It's kind
> of interesting. These are for the year 1990, and doesn't seems to give all
> of the reports. More on this below.
> 
> What's startling is the total of cases: 982 for one year...
> I sure hope these are statewide and not county.
> 
> 
>                                              1     2     3    4    5    6
> Verified Case   .........................   144   091   177  159  133  278
> Terminations    .........................   061   020   101  006  040  065
> Foster Care     .........................   022   039   018  013  033  011
> Guardianships   .........................   052   009   055  020  026  034
> Returns         .........................   009   023   003  120  034  168
> 
> Category                   Definition
> 
> 1:   Males 15-20           Verified Cases consist of physical abuse to
> 2:   Males 21-25           biological offspring which required hospital-
> 3:   Males 26-up           ization on more than 3 occasions.
> 
> 4:   Females 15-20         Terminations are where the parental rights were
> 5:   Females 21-25         revoked. Foster Care is semi-permanent placement
> 6:   Females 26-up         of the children. Guardianships are temporary 
>                            placements (18 mo. or less). Returns are where
>                            the child was returned to the care of the parent.
> 
> This *seems* to indicate that incidence of female perpetrated abuse is about
> 5-30% greater than male perpetrated abuse. These figures don't _appear_ to
> take into account whether there was more than one child in the home or not,
> and only deals with cases where intervention by the Juvenile Court system
> was invoked. So cases from divorce and/or non-parent abuses are absent. CPS
> only cases (cases which didn't come to court) are also apparently absent.
> What I find a bit disturbing is the breakdowns --how the courts react to men
> versus women in these cases.
> 
> ---
> Bob Kirkpatrick <bobk@dogear.spk.wa.us>
> Dog Ear'd Systems of Spokane, WA

There are some facts missing from this chart that might have bearing on 
results.  First of all, what is the total percentage population that this
was taken from, what are the comparable figures of amounts of children/
parents in those ages groups, how many of these children are in a single
parent home versus both parents living there, etc.  Unfortunately, many
states have legislation that mandates placing the abused/neglected child
back with the family if at all possible.  And, in many areas the foster
care system is so totally overloaded that there really is no place else
to put them.  Our local newspaper has ads every day, begging for foster
parents.

Sue