Domestic Violence, Child Custody and Gendered Mental Illness in Family Courts

• In Event: 1517 - Section on Disability and Society Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 01. Gender, Race, and Disability

Abstract

We explore how mental illness, a covered disability under Americans-with-Disabilities-Act is shaped by the family court system. We employ a mixed-methods approach to interpret how abusers employ accusations of gendered mental illness against their victims in child custody disputes using case study, surveys, interviews and participant observation. We located initial study participants within social media domestic violence support groups and then employed snowball sampling to expand our sample. When courts determine that litigants have a disabling mental illness, there are significant and sweeping implications regarding long-term access to children, court-mandated treatment, child support, rights to children's school medical care, mounting court fees and costs associated with orders, such as participation in supervised visitation, parenting programs, treatment not-covered by insurance and so forth. When accused of being mentally disabled, legal fees exponentially increased, with many cases resulting in bankruptcy and homelessness. Victims report returning to their abuser several times before ultimately exiting because leaving was extremely cost-prohibitive under the legal context. The ADA and Section-504 of the Rehabilitation-Act-of-1973 require child welfare agencies and courts to have policies to prevent discrimination against parents with disabilities in the child welfare system. Courts are precluded from holding bias that parents are unable to parent based on disability, but initial results suggest the opposite occurs in court. Often without medical testimony, or with testimony paid for exclusively by the abusive party, the victim is accused of mental disability and loses some or all of his or her custodial rights. Victims are more likely to be female, black and have limited access to financial resources. However, for victims of domestic violence, just obtaining counsel to protect oneself from further abuse, legally separate from their abuser and maintain custodial rights is often financially burdensome and leaves few resources to obtain the legal protections under ADA.

Authors

• Meghan M O'Neil, University of Michigan

• JJ Prescott, University of Michigan