Parents Get VOCAL About False Child Abuse Accusations

One day in May, 1985, Elaine Humlen, a divorced single mother of two who works as a saleswoman in Whittier, experienced what she now calls “D-day.” Her children disappeared--and she was accused of child abuse.

The day before, according to Humlen, her son, age 9, had been playing baseball in the front yard when he was hit on the nose with the ball. “He didn’t come in crying and it didn’t leave much of a mark, so I didn’t think much of it,” she said.

At school the next afternoon, a teacher noticed a spot on the boy’s nose and sent him to the school nurse. Because of California’s “mandatory reporting law,” which states that professionals must report even the smallest suspicion of child abuse, the nurse called the police.

The Ordeal Began

Law enforcement officials picked up the boy and Humlen’s infant daughter, who was in the care of her sister at the time. They did not notify Humlen that they had taken her children; they were to keep the youngsters for eight days. It took the mother 2 1/2 months to regain custody of her children, and it cost her her job.

Until several years ago, stories of child abuse were rare. Today, however, nearly every major U. S. city has a sensational case in progress. Child abuse, the most heinous of crimes, has gone public.

The result: Most people now believe that neglect and molestation of children are on the rise. At first glance, the statistics support this contention. According to the California Department of Social Services, about 25,000 cases of abuse are reported each month, indicating a 10% increase each year.

However, beneath the surface of statistics, there is sometimes a more complicated story. Elaine Humlen’s tale is not unusual. The percentage of child abuse cases reported, but remaining unsubstantiated, runs high. Some experts, for example, claim that as many as 60% to 70% of the reported cases are unfounded.

As a result, signs of a backlash are now appearing. Thousands of adults nationwide have banded together to form an information network and support group for people claiming to be falsely accused of child abuse. Some even claim a witch hunt for molesters is under way, clogging the system with unsubstantiated cases and draining its resources away from the real cases.

These parents claim that, in a strange way, they and their children are abused by the child abuse laws designed to protect them. They have formed VOCAL (Victims of Child Abuse Laws), which started in Minneapolis in 1984 and now has 120 chapters nationwide, including 20 established California chapters and 21 more in various stages of application in the state.

VOCAL members say that false allegations of child abuse are being used by one parent against another to win custody of children during bitter divorce wars.

According to Daniel C. Schuman, director of psychiatry at the Norfolk County Probate and Family Court in Massachusetts, “A generation ago, all you had to do was allege adultery and that was the end of a custody case. Ten years ago, all you had to do was allege homosexuality and that was the end. Now, all you have to do is allege child abuse and that’s it.”

The groundswell of concern for abused children is overdue, Schuman said. “But now, in some cases, it’s also overdone. (Excess reporting) does terrible damage to the relationships children need with parents accused of being abusive. Reporting itself becomes a new form of subtle child deprivation and abuse.

“We don’t want to pretend that no child abuse occurs,” Schuman said. “But some meaningful proportion of allegations are exaggerated, erroneous or just plain contrived.”

False allegations of abuse also may be used by medical professionals to protect themselves from malpractice suits, VOCAL members claim. In the new book “The Politics of Child Abuse” (Lyle Stuart, $17.95), authors Paul and Shirley Eberle tell the story of a woman whose daughter, age 5, developed a vaginal infection and began scratching it.

False Proof

She took the child to a hospital, where she was examined five times during two weeks. The doctors’ instruments reportedly left marks on her vagina and legs.

The mother took the child to another hospital, where the doctor gravely announced, “Your daughter had been molested. There’s the proof,” pointing to the instruments’ marks. This child was taken away from her parents and placed in a foster home. According to the Eberles, she has not yet been returned.

False allegations also may be made by neighbors or family members to incite disputes, by adoptive children and teens to get revenge at parents or teachers for disciplinary acts. Some of the most notorious cases involve childcare professionals.

The net result of all this is what some people are calling a growing “child abuse industry.”

Lesley Wimberley, president of California VOCAL in Sacramento, told The Times in a telephone interview: “We urgently want to stop child abuse, but we can’t do it at the expense of the innocence of children’s minds, our constitutional rights, and the children’s civil rights. We have to do it sensibly.”

Once accused of child abuse, Wimberley said, “parents are immediately faced with several things: ostracism from the community, risk of losing their jobs, a huge bail if arrested, and the cost of an attorney.

“(The Department of) Social Services removes the kids to the juvenile system. Even if you’re acquitted, you have to go into the juvenile system with a new attorney to get your kids back.

‘It’s an Outrage’

“It’s crazy,” she said. “Your sanity can be destroyed by the pointing of a finger. It’s an outrage when you’ve done no crime. Lives literally need to be rebuilt. That’s why we’re speaking out publicly.”

Wimberley said she first became interested in the problem because of a situation involving a relative.

“VOCAL has nothing to offer the guilty,” Wimberley said. “We demand a thorough investigation so that everything is exposed.”

Kathleen Norris, chief of public information offices at the Department of Social Services in Sacramento, agreed that the percentage of undecided cases ranges from 60% to 70%, but distinguished between “unfounded” and “unsubstantiated” cases.

“Cases may be unsubstantiated due to lack of evidence,” she said. “Or there are some unfortunate cases that are unfounded totally, for whatever reason the charges are brought. That’s a reality. But to say flat across that 60% are unfounded is incorrect.”

Besides the disruption of family life, this flood of reports also overloads the government’s child protective system and endangers the children who really are being abused, according to Douglas J. Besharov, first director of the U.S. National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect.

In the afterword to “A Question of Innocence” by Lawrence D. Spiegel, a book published in 1986 on the topic (Unicorn, $16.95), Besharov wrote, “Each year, more than 500,000 families are put through investigations. This amounts to a massive and unjustified violation of parental rights.

“As more people realize that hundreds of thousands of innocent people are having their reputations tarnished and their privacy invaded, while tens of thousands of endangered children are going unprotected, a backlash is sure to develop that will erode continued support for child protective efforts.”

VOCAL has several state and national agendas:

-- To ensure protection of the child during the time between accusation and trial, which can take up to 18 months. Children typically are taken into protective custody, separated from their parents and interrogated by many different individuals. VOCAL proposes using a trained “child advocate” who remains with the young person during this process.

-- To refine the investigations. Several VOCAL members alleged that some investigators repeatedly drill children who deny that they are abused, occasionally using leading questions, highly erotic questions and intimidation techniques.

Controversial Issue

The issue is a controversial one. Child psychiatrist Roland Summit, clinical assistant professor at UCLA and acknowledged expert on sexually abused children, believes probing questions are needed to help get the children to talk. “Most molested children are trapped by silent victimization,” he pointed out.

“They will only move from denial to acknowledgement if they are approached with the right questions,” he said. “If you want to know whether molestation has occurred, then you must probe beyond the child’s first denial. This is a volatile issue that tears people into extreme views.”

VOCAL proposes retraining therapists, social workers and others involved in investigating these types of cases. California Sen. H. L. Richardson (R-Glendora) introduced a bill in 1986 to update the training criteria. The bill (SB 2463) passed the California House and Senate, but was vetoed by Gov. Deukmejian.

VOCAL also proposes videotaping all interviews with the children, so that a full record of the quality of the investigation is available to the courts. Furthermore, Wimberley said, typically no one investigates the family dynamics or the stability of neighbors who may have made the claim.

-- To ensure a parent’s right to due process. “In this country, no one should be considered guilty by accusation,” Wimberley said. “Yet once you’re sitting in the defense seat in a child abuse case, the jury thinks you must have done something or you wouldn’t be there.”

In many cases, she said, children are taken from their homes by law enforcement officers without warrants or a reading of their constitutional rights. If the parents are not available when children are taken, law enforcement officers are not obligated to notify them.

One Success Story

A VOCAL success story: Kathy Bias, an elementary school teacher in Whittier, was accused of abuse by another teacher because her son, 11, had bruises. The boy explained that he may have fallen off his bike or out of his bunkbed, or that he may have gotten kicked in soccer.

Nevertheless, Bias said, her three boys were taken into custody and held for three days. She claims she was given no notification of their whereabouts. Later, in juvenile court, the District Attorney did not press charges.

“I had been so upset by the way it was handled that I called Assemblyman Frank Hill (R-Whittier). I suggested that he draft a law requiring that parents be notified if their children are taken into custody and that they be made aware of their rights and procedures in the juvenile court system.”

As a result of their efforts, this law (AB 2648), went into effect Jan. 1, 1987.

-- To change the mandatory reporting law. “An anonymous phone call can destroy a life,” Wimberley said. “This is because the state requires people to report any reasonable suspicion of child abuse, and those professionals who do not report get fined or jailed.”

Los Angeles attorney Allen McMahon, who specializes in juvenile dependency cases and family law, is the co-chairman of California VOCAL, its national legal adviser and head of the Los Angeles chapter. “In some cases,” McMahon said, “the law creates more trauma than the ‘abuse.’ The child abuse industry includes one-half million reports annually, but no one tells us they’re just reports.

“People are in a kind of panic to make reports. In 1975, doctors were liable for malpractice because they did not report abuse. Their insurance companies paid dearly, and ended up telling the doctors to report anything.”

McMahon added: “Because of the way the federal laws are written, states only get funding if they continually open new cases. Most social workers have 100 to 160 active cases already, but they are pressured to open more.

“We are not saying there’s no real child abuse,” McMahon said. “But so many unfounded cases means time is wasted not on the real cases. That’s the real danger.”

-- To remove immunity from prosecution. “Right now, social workers, police, teachers and attorneys are not held accountable in these cases because they have immunity from prosecution,” Wimberley said.

Berkeley psychiatrist Lee Coleman, a specialist on the role of mental health professionals in the courts, also disagrees with the way child abuse investigations are currently done. “Nobody has good statistics (about which cases are real) because you’d have to have good methods to gather numbers, and there are no good investigations or trials.

“We know overwhelmingly that false allegations are a big problem. We also know that the child molestation takes place and it’s not a rare thing, so we have to do as good a job as we can.”