The True Cost of False Witness

It is the "nuclear option" in divorce and custody cases. It is the nightmare scenario for foster parents. It can be the end of a teaching or child-care career. What is it? It is a false allegation of child abuse. This is not only a particularly vicious form of fraud; it is one of the few lies that the legal system makes no effort to punish. There is, for all practical purposes, no penalty for making a false accusation of child abuse.

Many different characters can have a motive for making a false allegation. Sometimes a birth parent will accuse the foster parents of harming the child. The birth parents may believe that they can improve their chances of reunifying with their child by discrediting the foster parents. Or the birth parents may simply be vindictive.

Sometimes the foster children themselves invent stories, for reasons of their own. The kids might want to get out of a foster home, because the rules are too tough, or they don’t like the food. Inventing a story of sexual molestation or physical abuse can be a foster child’s tactic for getting himself or herself thrown out of a foster home. Kids who have been in The System for a while compare notes with one another about how to get themselves thrown out of a foster home. False allegations are so common, that our local foster parent association has a policy of assisting families through their first experience of being investigated.

But of course, it isn’t just people already in the child welfare system who have motives for making false allegations. Some parents in custody disputes make accusations against their spouses as a tactic for keeping the parent out of the child’s life. Others have no practical reason for inventing a charge: they do it simply for spite. One study, however, found that some 70% of child abuse charges in custody cases, proved to be unfounded.

Now a little thought will bring to mind the cost to the victims of a false allegation. The divorced father loses his reputation, his livelihood and all contact with his children. The foster parents go through a long investigative procedure, which may cost them money and will certainly cost them sleep. But let’s not dwell on the obvious costs to the obvious victims. There are many hidden costs of indiscriminate charges of child abuse.

The prospect of having a false allegation made against you, is surely something that dissuades good people from becoming foster parents in the first place. The more scrupulous the person is, the more the prospect of being humiliated by an investigation is likely to bother them. We don’t know how many perfectly decent potential foster parents have been frightened away. The cost of aggressively prosecuting each and every child abuse claim, no matter how far fetched, is that the system has trouble attracting and retaining foster parents. This is costly for all the kids who come through the foster care system.

There are costs for the particular kids who make false claims. A child with a history of making up stories about authority figures really can not be in a foster home, since, most families are reluctant to take a child with this kind of history. The social workers could place such a child with an unsuspecting foster family, but they really shouldn’t. So if the social workers play it straight, the kid will have trouble getting a home. That child is no longer "family material." He or she will end up in a group home, because he or she poses a serious risk to a family.

The worst consequence of undetected false claims is that children who get away with lying become more and more disturbed. Nancy Thomas, therapeutic foster mom, has spent her adult life helping seriously disturbed children. In her book, Dandilion on my pillow, butcher knife underneath, she reports on the sad consequences of serial lying. One child had come into foster care after accusing his mother of subjecting him to a child prostitution ring. His mother and another adult went to prison. Another accused person committed suicide. His social worker lost her license. But as the story unfolded, Nancy found out that there was no child prostitution ring: the child’s father had coached the child to make these charges, as a way of hurting his ex-wife. Of all Nancy’s troubled children, this was the one who never really recovered.

Think about it from the perspective of a mildly troubled child: "I got my stepdad sent to jail. I broke up my mom’s second marriage. I got my foster parents’ license taken away." Getting an adult in trouble empowers the child, and they become drunk on that power. Every time they get away with a lie, they get more disturbed and more difficult to treat. That is the greatest hidden cost of allowing false allegations to go undetected and unpunished.

If you or I pulled the fire alarm because we liked to see all the excitement of the fire trucks, we’d be in big trouble. The public safety officers in this country take a dim view of people who harm the public good in this way. False or frivolous charges of child abuse play the same kind of havoc with the family court system, and in the lives of many innocent people. At the very least, society needs to impose some penalty for inflicting those kinds of costs on others. The first step is recognizing the problem. People get away with making false allegations every day. Innocent people suffer from being falsely accused. It is high time we notice.

This article originally published in the National Catholic Register, and is reprinted with permission of Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, author of 101 Tips for a Happier Marriage which you can find on-line at www.jointhemarriagerevolution.com.

False accusations, especially in family court, are a HUGE problem. They could be stopped almost instantly merely by strictly enforcing the existing law.

However, the feminists who have taken over the family court have howled with objection every time this issue comes up. They truly beleive that alllowing a woman to accuse a man without any fear of consequence is "empowering" to women.

Feminsts could not do this without the complicency of family court judges, who are more interested in being politically correct than they are in enforcing the law.

Once court become political devices, rather than legal devices, they have lost their relevance. Unfortunately, that is exactly the case in the US courts.

False accusations, especially in family court, are a HUGE problem.

Agreed. Anyone can make any false allegation without consequence. The law, truth and justice take a second seat to the witch hunt mentality that pervades the radical feminist propagandized politically correct 'system' that is run by immoral socialists...

Yeah, but if you are a multimillionaire you can afford the umpteen hundreds of thousand of dollars to defend a case like this.

Another reason the legal profession, also, does not put it's foot down on these cases.

I say false accusation should equal hard jail time. But it would cost lawyers a lot of business if folks weren't able to bring these charges without consequence.

You are more than correct.

I have been the victim of such false allegations and been investigated by both police department detectives and DCS caseworkers. When the matter was before the court, I had both the detective and the caseworker present because they were willing to testify that the whole thing was a lie. It was a custody matter and they had also interviewed my daughter who was 7 at the time. The judge could not find me guilty because there was no evidence, but, because she knew that the state's own professional investigators were prepared to testify that a false report had been made, she would not even allow them to testify. And then she verbally abused me saying that I had just been "lucky" this time.

People actually wonder why so many men have no respect for female judges! Or why we discount all these reports of "domestic violence"? It's because women use this as a tactic to gain an advantage in divorce proceedings and the courts allow it every time.

I had a recent inquiry about donating some professional talents to the renovation of a "battered womens" shelter and, although I wasn't stupid enough to come right out and say it, I have no intention of contributing to this kind of thing when all too often it's simply used as a ploy in a court system that gives all the credence in the world to any allegation against a man, even when the proof of it being false is right in front of the judge's face.

Both my wife and I have a brother each that have been falsely accused of child sexual molestation, and after the truth was uncovered, no one was punished, and both our brothers were out many thousands of dollars, not to mention the jail time!

Someone needs a serious penalty when this happens, and then they should have to pay back all the expenses the falsely accused acquire from the case.

I was falsely accused during my divorce, and was cleared by the GAL as the proceeding went on. I filed a "false swearing" complaint through channels - made a formal written complaint to the sheriff's department who investigated it and referred it to the DA's office. (Sagadahoc County, Maine). The DA told me that they would not prosecute it, and it was "up to the judge" in the divorce case. The judge was Joe Fields in the West Bath District Court in Maine. The case was settled without a trial, and nothing ever came of it. I have the entire matter meticulously documented.

I was sitting in Joe Field courtroom about a year later observing domestic violence complaints for some research I was doing related related to some crisis work I do. I heard several men complain that the complaints made against them were were bogus, and demanded that that the persons making the false complaints were punished. Joe Fields sternly told those men that they would have to take their complaints to the DA.

It occurred to me what a shell game was being played here. Clearly both the judge and the DA's office are fully aware of he problem, and want to sweep it under the rug. They are clearly more afraid of the political ramifications of being seen as "women-unfriendly" than enforcing the law.

Having, therefore, given up on enforcing the law, I am wondering just what the courts are there FOR? Every year the Maine court system whines it doesn't have enough money, and if they don't get more they will have to close down courts. My gut reaction to that is: "So?"

"I had a recent inquiry about donating some professional talents to the renovation of a "battered womens" shelter and, although I wasn't stupid enough to come right out and say it, I have no intention of contributing to this kind of thing"

Well, I have worked with battered men for many years, and not only are the women's shelter being not helpful to those men, I have instance where people associated with those groups KNOWINGLY assisted with false accusations. So, when I am solicited for anything for those groups, I tell them exactly what my experience is and exactly why I will not support them. I mean, why keep this shameful thing a secret? That is what dysfunctional families do.

If I were speaking just for myself, I most likely would have come right out and told them why I wouldn't help, but this particular inquiry came to me by way of a much larger company which provides many necessary referrals. I didn't want it to reflect back on them if I had been too outspoken for one thing; and, for another, even the existence of a previous allegation, no matter how false, puts a man in a bad light. I'm not sure that if I'd told them why I was refusing, they wouldn't have gone to the larger company and claimed that they were doing business with an "abuser". I can't afford those kinds of bumps in my business.

I told the referring company that current cash flow simply didn't allow me to make any kind of contribution at this time.

...some 70% of child abuse charges in custody cases, proved to be unfounded.

Judges need to restore some modicum of credibility to their courts by nailing people to the wall for this. They do if a person files a false police report, but if the victim is just some middle-aged white guy, he should just suck it up and get on with his life. Its horribly wrong, and the perpetrators of this character assassination need to be punished for it.

"Judges need to restore some modicum of credibility to their courts by nailing people to the wall for this.

But they don't

Why? Because judges don't care about the court's credibility. They're like the 'rats who think the would is a pink cloud until election time, and they lose and say "what happened!?".

Judges tend to be isolated and have no clue what disgust the general population has with the court system.

Make sense now?

Make sense now?

Of course, I know all that. But, even in a judge's own, self-absorbed world, you'd think they would want people in their court to at least respect them.

I know of one family court judge here in Wyoming who at least won't let unsubstantiated claims be thrown around in her court. She will just cut them off when they start to spew accusations and say, "I don't allow that kind of crap in my court. If you have evidence of abuse to present, then present it. Otherwise, don't go there."

"Of course, I know all that. But, even in a judge's own, self-absorbed world, you'd think they would want people in their court to at least respect them.

They think people do - or at least they WANT to think that people respect them in their own court.

Fear them? Yes, and you should. But the public disgust with the legal system is a cliche. There is no respect there, only disguised contempt. And contempt that goes both ways.

I know of one family court judge here in Wyoming who at least won't let unsubstantiated claims be thrown around in her court.

In the Maine court a few years ago there was a judge like that. The fems HATED the guy because he would request evidence of abuse charges.

When he came up for renomination he was the only judge in recent memory who was not automatically renominated.

Judges in Maine know what happens if they try to enforce the laws against making false charges. They can expect to be fired.

Something happened when we weren't looking. Lunatics took over the courts, or something. We will need a concerted effort for a decade or two to get them back.

SSQ won't even stay in the house alone with our daughter and her friends, if an errand needs to be run. He'll do the errand and leave me with them. He doesn't even like for her friends to come up to her room on the second floor bedroom level if he happens to be at home. He is extremely cautious about this, because the whole sexual harassment thing has been drilled in at work, and he knows that once accused, there's no where to go to get your reputation back.

"It occurred to me what a shell game was being played here. Clearly both the judge and the DA's office are fully aware of he problem, and want to sweep it under the rug. They are clearly more afraid of the political ramifications of being seen as "women-unfriendly" than enforcing the law."

One of them many complex problems we now deal with because women can vote. We have congressmen and senators that want to keep the women's vote passing laws that "take care of everyone" and get rid of those dangerous guns. Along with trying to prevent the country from going to war because they don't want their precious babies killed in combat, never mind that the country is soft and defenseless like a woman.

Let the flaming begin.

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