Civil Gideon

Legal Action of Wisconsin has put together a motion packet for pro se individuals to use to request that the court appoint an attorney to represent them in a civil case.  A court appointed attorney is not a right in civil cases (like it is in criminal cases) but pro se individuals have the right to ask for one.

Low income individuals have very little luck finding legal representation and without representation, they have difficulty navigating the court system, the court system becomes more bogged up as judges need to waste time educating pro se individuals, and the results are often not favorable.  

The need for legal representation is even greater for victims of domestic violence because of the imbalance of power in the relationship, their lack of financial resources because of financial abuse, perpetrator's use of the court system to further control their victim, and the trauma the victim has experienced which often effects how she presents herself.  Add to all of that the costs associated with going through the court system (GAL fees, study fees, mediation fees, etc.) and the push in many counties to give parties 50/50 placement and joint custody even with the presence of domestic violence.  

Can we make the court system any more difficult for victims?  When will courts recognize the effects on children of domestic violence and make that a priority over parental rights?  When will courts recognize that most contested custody battles involve domestic violence and because of the perpetrator's focus on controlling the victim instead of the best interests of the children, GAL and studies are necessary?  When will courts recognize that the costs for such should be paid by the party causing the need for those things?  When will courts make a priority protecting children?

It's so frustrating to see courts ignore some very important tools for victims of domestic violence that are written right into the state statutes.  And it is so frustrating to watch clients go further and further in debt when all they want to do is protect their children.

So getting back to the topic of legal representation for indigent individuals in civil cases, I hope that courts see this as an opportunity to make the court process more fair and provide better access to our court system for indigent individuals but I fear that county budgets will instead be the focus at the expense of indigent individuals and at the expense of victims of domestic and sexual violence and their children.

Children see. Children do.

This video clip speaks for itself.

Child Abuse and Neglect Cost the United States $124 Billion

Click on the title of this post to read the press release put out by CDC on how much child abuse and neglect costs our nation. If the effect child abuse has on children isn't reason enough to step in and change things, the cost to our health care, legal, and social services systems should make every taxpayer want to act.

Our systems are so reactive and do little to prevent it from happening in the first place. Social services is hesitant to remove a child because they are so focused on keeping the family together and so further abuse happens. Family courts need hard proof of serious abuse happening before they even considered supervised placement or hold opens on placement for the abusive parents. As unfair as this may sound, we need to stop giving second (and third and fourth and fifth, etc.) chances when the safety of children are involved. And we need to look at the statistics that say a parent who is abusive towards the other parent is far more likely to be abusive towards the children. Our children deserve better. And parents' rights should not be put above children's needs and rights.

Why does he do that?

I am in the middle of reading the book Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft. He does an incredible job of explaining the dynamics of domestic violence and attempting to explain why abusive men are abusive.

Chapter 10 is a great chapter title "Abusive Men as Parents." At one point he discusses the mixed messages that society sends mothers who are victims of domestic violence and he said something that really struck me. He talks about how when mothers choose to stay with their abusive partners, child protection officials threaten to take their children away and claim that they are failing to protect their children. But then when a mother leaves her abusive partner and goes to the court regarding custody and physical placement, the court tells her that she can't keep the children away from their father. Washington County goes even further and says that 50/50 placement is in the best interests of the child. So it is not OK to stay and let her children be exposed to the violence but once you leave, you have no choice but to allow your children be exposed to the violence. How does that make any sense?

Monsters in the Closet

This video speaks for itself.

Child abuse

One of the toughest parts of my job is hearing the stories of child abuse and the effect of violence on children. It's one of those things I don't think I will ever get immune to (at least I hope not). And incidents of child abuse seem to be on the rise or reporting them at least seems to be on the rise. As I got a referral for a 3 child abuse injunctions late last week, I thought about what I had been told by one of the attorneys when I did my first one a number of months ago. She said that child abuse injunctions are rare and that we usually only see a couple year at the most. Well, in the 6 months I've been here I have done intake on 5 different referrals that involved child abuse injunctions and my colleague has done 3 or 4. And each of them have been just as heartbreaking as the last.

I don't know if it is the economy which brings additional financial stress to families, stress that some seem to take out on their significant others and/or children. I don't know if it is something that the community is doing a better job of speaking up that it isn't right and so it has become more accepted to report it. I don't know. But I really wish people would see how much the violence affects their children and care enough to do something about it.

Quality ranking determines state funding of day-cares

An article in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel titled "Day-care providers to be paid based on quality under Doyle plan" caught my eye. It explains Governor Doyle's plan to create a ranking system based on quality of care that will determine how much state funding day-cares get. The ranking would be based on "the education level of the staff, the learning environment in the center as well as business practices, and the health and well-being of children."

I have two issues with this concept.

1. True quality of care can't be measured objectively. Educational level of staff does not necessary equate with quality care-givers. And things like the health and well-being of children can't be measured. Plus a certain type of learning environment with one set of children may not be appropriate at all for a different set of children.

2. This type of plan allows rich day-cares to get richer and poor day-cares to get poorer. If we cut funding significantly to a day-care that can't hire teachers with a master's degree, how can we expect them to find the money to find teachers with more education. We will be seeing this same thing in schools that are not meeting the goals of No Child Left Behind. Eventually funding will get cut, and the schools will only get worse.

Instead let's deal with the real issue here: fraud. Instead of focusing on quality and spending money to do so in such a poor economy, we need to just focus on enforcing the expectations that come with state funding of day-cares. And let parents set expecations of quality by choosing where they send their children.

Mayoral control of MPS

Governor Doyle and his supporters are proposing a change to WI public schools that would give the Mayor of Milwaukee line item veto power of the Milwaukee Public School's budget as well as other control. There was an article in today's Milwauke Journal Sentinel. What just doesn't make sense to me about this proposal is why anyone would think we could improve public schools by giving someone with no education background or understanding basically sole control of the school system. To me that sounds like setting us up for bigger failures.

Yes, we need reform. And yes, that may mean brining in some from outside of the education field to give a different perspective. But to give sole control to one man with little to no knowledge of best practices in education?

Effects of crime on children

Today in the courthouse, something I observed almost brought me to tears. Sitting outside a courtroom was a mother with her young son (probably about 2 years old). A man in handcuffs escorted by two officers exited the courtroom. Upon seeing the man, the child jumped from his mother's lap crying and started chasing after the man yelling "Daddy, daddy!"

The child was too young to completely grasp the situation but knew that his father was being taken away from him.