Connections with the Criminal Justice System

This page endeavours to open a discussion on the connections with and comparisons between the CYFS-Family Court System and the Criminal Justice- District Court System, in particular investigation practices. People with any contributions may add them to the Forum or send an email separately to the Director using the contact form.

Connections with the Police and Criminal Justice System

1. Many parents are suspected by CYFS of abuse of children but investigation by the police finds no reasonable grounds for continuing the investigation. However CYFS stills treats the parent as if he or she were guilty of the supposed offence or at least of being an unsafe parent, subjecting them to supervised access and so on, which amounts to a sentencing without trial.

2. Some parents are actually charged with an offence such as assault on a child but are subsequently acquitted in the District Court. Again CYFS may still treat the parent as guilty or unsafe and continue to malign their character and competency in Family Court hearings. Crown lawyers employed in the District Court may be used again in the Family Court to aid CYFS in their seeking to prevent a previously acquitted parent from securing the return of their child.

Comparisons between the two Court systems

Both Courts these days have an adversarial approach where the prime motive often is to win the case. Whether or not the truth is upheld and justice is served may be very secondary factors. Joe Karam makes a strong point in his book David and Goliath: The Bain Family Murders 1997. Reed Books: Auckland, about criminal justice. "The sad fact is that justice has become a power game to be won or lost." Then in Bain and Beyond 2000. Reed Books: Auckland, Karam states "The goal is no longer to discover the truth but simply to win. And without truth there can be no justice." (p181). While Karam's case for the innocence of David Bain is problematic, the above assertions are sadly and equally true, if not more so, of the Family Court.

1. The District or criminal Court, although being adversarial, tends to be much more open to the public and the media so that justice can be seen to be done or not done much more readily than in the Family Court.

2. The CYFS-Family Court system tends to be far less accountable than the District Court with a pervading secrecy and privacy where many unprofessional practices may be covered up. The Family Court, although officially open, allows very few non-family supporters to attend defended hearings and the media are excluded.

3. In the District Court the burden of proof for conviction is formally beyond reasonable doubt while in the Family Court it is weighed on the balance of probabilities a far lower standard. Also the standards of evidence in the District Court tend to be much higher than in the Family Court.

4. The Children Young Persons and Their Families Act (1989), in the name of child protection, allows procedures and actions by social workers and police which would be fundamental breaches of human rights if conducted for any other purposes. Parental rights and responsibilities and children’s needs and wishes are often entirely disregarded when a child has not been harmed but is considered likely to be at risk and therefore is removed by force. In other words freedom to live as a family unit has been destroyed when no parent has actually committed any crime.

Comparisons between investigation practices of CYFS and the Police

1. Factors in investigations of families by CYFS:

a) An Area Manager of CYFS said in an interview, We take a forensic approach. We’re at the sharp end [of things]. This may be fine provided a balanced and thorough investigation is done in response to allegations but many allegations have little substance.

b) Typically CYFS looks only for what is wrong or deficient in a family situation and puts the parenting in the worst possible light ignoring all the good points.

c) Often investigators take on board the views of those who support allegations while ignoring the advocacy of those who support the family.

d) The interviewing of children supposedly at risk may leave a lot to be desired while the parents may not be interviewed at all prior to the children being removed.

e) Many false allegations against parents or concerned notifications about children are found by CYFS’s investigation to require no further action. In 1999 out of 23,000 notifications about 10,000 were in that category.

f) However many investigations are pursued with an agenda to find something significantly wrong in order to justify the previous over-reactive removal of a child or to justify subsequent removal.

g) The agenda may involve a vindictive attitude against a parent or social engineering” designed to put the children with more suitable caregivers. (as with the removal of aboriginal children in Australia).

h) If the initial allegation of abuse proves shaky CYFS will exaggerate other matters to come up other problematic allegations such as neglect or lack of control. In the United States most neglect is seen as the result of poverty not of lack of parental care!

2. Comparisons with reported deficiencies in police investigations

Statements by Joe Karam (Bain and Beyond) reporting on deficiencies in some police investigations summarises the problems as he sees them:

a. a mindset that someone is guilty;

Likewise CYFS tends to form a mindset that the parent(s) is guilty of some kind of abuse or neglect and so do all in their power to produce evidence however flimsy for that view.

b. ignoring any evidence or available evidence to the contrary;

Likewise CYFS typically filter the evidence gained to put forward only that which supports their view of the situation, and fail to interview available and potential witnesses who would not support the mindset arrived at.

c. pressing on with the prosecution process by laying charges anyway

Likewise CYFS in the Family Court will continue their prosecution or persecution of parents involved to deny them justice and convince the Court of the charges they have against the family.

3. Presenting the Evidence to Court

Comments by Joe Karam on the David Bain case in Bain and Beyond will echo the experience of many parents thrown into the Family Court arena (and sometimes the District Court) by CYFS. According to Karam:

a) The jury did not hear all the evidence, and much of what they did hear was either patently wrong or seriously misleading (p43); nor was the evidence presented in its proper perspective (p49).

b) David and Goliath was a book of protest that exposed the Crown case for what it was a series of inferences drawn from alleged facts that were not facts at all, and which simply did not stack up. (p46)

4. Conclusions of this discussion based on available knowledge and experience

The investigative approach of CYFS and the police is often very similar but the standard of CYFS’s investigations tends to be much lower than that of the police because of the lack of professionalism and abuse of their power to remove children supposedly at risk but where no actual crime has been committed.

When people are under investigation by CYFS they are more likely to be victims of a subjective outlook, of judgemental and punitive attitudes, and a too narrow focus on child safety, as these unprofessional mentalities appear to pervade the Department.

Well known cases of unjustified charges against innocent people by the police are clear examples of what many parents suffer at the hand of CYFS, a modern Gestapo, in the eyes of many. Thus parents often are treated by CYFS as Arthur Allan Thomas and David Dougherty (and David Bain in Karam's eyes) were treated by the police, made criminals on the basis of evidence that was incomplete, misleading or false.

5. Consequence