From Madness to Mutiny

This book examines the serious dysfunction of the nation's family courts--a dysfunction that too often results in the courts' failure to protect the people they were designed to help. Specifically, the authors chronicle cases in which mothers who believe their children have been sexually abused by their fathers are disbelieved, ridiculed, or punished for trying to protect them. All too often the mother, in such a case, is deemed the unstable parent, and her children are removed from her care, to be placed in foster care or even with the father credibly accused of abusing them. Employing ethnomethodology, they show how a closed and claustrophobic family court setting that makes practical sense to the system's practitioners looks like madness to everyone else. They also describe the social interactive work of mothers trapped inside the system who litigate furiously, take their stories to the press, or turn fugitive with their children. From Madness to Mutiny offers an overview of family court malfunction and the parental mutiny that results from it. The authors outline the legal landscape that makes the madness possible and discuss ways to reform the family courts. This second edition analyzes the recent "business model" that has taken hold of the family courts. Mothers must pay exorbitant fees to court-contracting visitation centers to see their children after losing custody to violent, credibly sexually abusive ex-spouses/partners, many of whom have cocaine habits, arrest records, unregistered (or unsecured) firearms, and histories of mental illness and suicidal behavior. While children have died under such conditions, courts are protected by judicial immunity.