I appreciate the Times Union editorial criticizing the governor’s Blue-Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations’ recommendation to halt these evaluations in Family Courts. The editorial argues the system should not be scrapped but improved. The question is, how?
Over the past three decades as a professor, scientist, psychologist and litigation consultant, I have specialized in researching child custody evaluations. As I reported in the American Journal of Family Law, not less than 15 children have been killed by parents recommended by a mental health professional to the courts. We simply cannot have children subjected to a psychologist’s faulty opinion that results in their murder.
When a court orders a child custody evaluation, the family must pay for it. As I wrote in Court Review: The Journal of the American Judges Association, custody evaluation fees can be staggering. In one case, the fees exceeded a family’s net worth. In another, the evaluation cost more than $300,000. Fees of $50,000 are not uncommon. Not surprisingly, my research found that two out of every three parents who participated in a custody evaluation felt it was not in their child’s best financial interest to have had that evaluation.
There is zero scientific evidence that custody evaluations benefit children. In contrast, my research found one in every five children were rated as worse from participating in a custody evaluation.
After a review of the above research and examining other factors, legislation (A.3503/S.7742) was introduced to prohibit child custody evaluations. Now, the governor’s Blue-Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations also recommends that child custody evaluations should be prohibited. I have advocated this position for decades.
The only way to repair child custody evaluations is for systematic scientific research to be done to create evaluation protocols proven to place children into better lives and not harm them. Only solid scientific findings can make true child custody experts.
Once this research is completed, psychologists will know how to perform these exams properly, and training can then begin. Short of this, more children will likely suffer and/or be murdered.
The best way for Americans to help end this problem is to fund the necessary scientific research.
Ira Daniel Turkat is a psychologist in Lakewood Ranch, Fla.
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