Deciding if a Child Is Safe

On a recent night in Palmdale, a woman makes a desperate 911 phone call. Her husband is beating her, she screams.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies respond and find the woman with a red welt budding around her right eye. Her husband sits glumly on a nearby chair.

In a bedroom of the apartment, deputies from a special domestic violence team question an 8-year-old boy who has witnessed the assault.

“He was slapping her,” Brian says of his stepfather and mother. The boy is standing teary-eyed and shaking near his parents’ king-size bed; he says he is too scared to stay at his home anymore.

Deputy Mark Richardson and domestic violence counselor Christine Vargas have a decision to make: Is the household violence so great that they should start the process of removing Brian from his mother’s care?

Questions of that sort are creating dilemmas in California and across the nation.

Many states have recently stiffened penalties for abusers who commit domestic violence in the presence of children. But the movement has resulted in some children being taken from nonabusive mothers accused of failing to protect them.

The cases raise serious questions: How can juvenile authorities protect the children of battered women without revictimizing the mother? Will women be less likely to report abuse if they fear their children will be taken from them? Or will the fear of losing them help some women decide to leave abusive situations?

Advocates of more aggressive responses from child welfare authorities point to horror stories of youngsters emotionally scarred by witnessing repeated violence at home or being assaulted themselves.

But critics contend that the child welfare system is too quick to remove children from their abused mothers, even if such separations are temporary.

“It makes much more sense to get the adult victim and child victim into a safe place than to take the child away from the one person who can protect them and that they love,” said Gail Pincus, who operates a Los Angeles program for abuse victims and batterers.

In New York City, a group of battered mothers won a preliminary injunction last month against the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, which had removed their children.

U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein ruled that the practice was penalizing the abused mothers and their children. A spokeswoman for the agency said that it plans to appeal, but also that it is undertaking its own reforms.

The lead plaintiff, Sharwline Nicholson, 33, a Brooklyn mother of two, was beaten by her boyfriend one winter morning two years ago. Their year-old daughter lay in a crib in the bedroom during the attack.

Afterward, Nicholson dialed 911 and left her daughter in the care of a neighbor. Nicholson, who suffered deep head gashes and a broken arm, was taken to a hospital where, she said, a cousin reassured her that the children would be tended to.

After she woke up the next day, she said, child welfare authorities informed her that she would have to appear in court a week later if she wanted to see her children.

“I was out of my mind at the time,” Nicholson said. “I couldn’t understand how things had gone from A to Z automatically. They wouldn’t release my children to me because they hadn’t arrested my boyfriend.”

Her children were put in a foster home, where, Nicholson alleges, they were left uncleaned and with scratches over their bodies. They were removed and placed with another foster family, but during their three weeks in custody her son never attended school, she said.

The children’s services agency declined to comment on specific allegations. However, officials said authorities try to keep children with their mothers unless their safety is threatened. And, among other changes being pursued, the agency is improving training for its caseworkers.

Nationally, child welfare agencies estimate that each year 2 million to 4 million women are victims of domestic violence that is witnessed by 3 million to 10 million children. The agencies’ studies have found that as many as 60% of children in homes where their mothers are abused also are beaten. There are no solid statistics on how many children are removed from homes where spousal abuse occurs.

Among the states addressing the issue are Nevada, which empowers judges to order psychological treatment for children of abuse victims, and Alaska, where children exposed to domestic violence can be placed under the jurisdiction of juvenile court.

But some good intentions have backfired. When Minnesota passed a law last year requiring that police provide child welfare authorities with domestic violence reports, the system was overwhelmed with new cases and the law was repealed.

In California, batterers can receive harsher penalties if violence is committed in front of children. Gov. Gray Davis vetoed legislation in November that would have required each county to develop guidelines for child welfare intervention in domestic violence cases. Davis said programs to accomplish those goals already exist.

Proponents called his veto a missed opportunity to help front-line people such as Deputy Richardson and counselor Vargas, who intercede with families while making their way through an emotionally explosive and legally murky landscape.

As part of Los Angeles County’s Safety Through Our Perseverance, or STOP, program, they interview family members, document injuries, obtain protective emergency orders and arrange for shelter, counseling and other services.

They also talk to children at the scenes of domestic violence to determine if they’ve been harmed or threatened. They can take a child into custody if there appears to be immediate danger, and they can initiate an investigation by child protective services.

While at Brian’s home, Vargas questioned him, asking him what he wanted to happen and examining his body for any signs of abuse.

One factor in such cases is the mother’s willingness to cooperate, Richardson said. In this incident, Brian’s mother took the first steps that night toward getting a restraining order to keep his stepfather away. The boy remained at home without any intervention from authorities.

On another outing, Richardson--a 20-year Sheriff’s Department veteran--and Vargas--a victim’s advocate with the Antelope Valley Domestic Violence Council--end up at another woman’s Palmdale apartment.

The night before, her jealous husband had punched, kicked and choked her. In the last year, the beatings had become almost a daily occurrence, she said.

Her 4-year-old son witnessed the latest violence and went to stay with his grandmother.

“He told me, ‘I don’t want to live with you and Dad,’ ” she says, cuddling her 3-year-old daughter. “He cries and says, ‘I don’t like to see you like that.’ ”

Richardson asks if her husband should be sent to trial.

“Even though he does what he does, I care about him,” she responds. “He has a really good job, and I care enough to support him because he wants to take care of our kids.”

She says he has never been violent with the children.

“Sometimes I grab the kids and hold them and say, ‘No, don’t do anything,’ so he won’t hurt me,” she says. “I want to separate from him, but in a good way. I want him to be a part of my kids’ life. The only problem we have is him beating me up.”

After they leave, Richardson and Vargas talk about how the woman doesn’t seem to realize that she has been using her children literally as a shield.

“She’s minimizing the fact that it’s as serious as it is and that her children are getting involved in it,” Richardson says.

When he asks Vargas about whether to report the case to the county Department of Children and Family Services, she doesn’t hesitate. They both agree that child protective services should be notified.

A caseworker ultimately interviews the woman and talks to her about the danger of using her children to fend off her husband. After making sure that the children are clean, that there is food in the house and that the husband is not on the scene, the case is closed.

But any recurrence of violence in the children’s presence would probably prompt a stronger response, either their removal or an insistence that the woman move out with the children, Vargas says.

The woman’s conflicted reaction is not unusual, experts say. Some battered women are so financially dependent or emotionally manipulated that they mentally minimize the danger to themselves and their children. Though men are also victims of domestic violence, they make up the vast number of perpetrators.

Other victims are intimidated by the legal system, lack supportive families or have language barriers that make it hard to get help and leave abusers, said Connie McFall, director of San Pedro’s Rainbow Shelter.

Anita Bock, director of the county children’s department, acknowledged that, on occasion, children might be unfairly removed from homes, but she said caseworkers face a balancing act. The county, she said, plans to dramatically increase training for social workers in dealing with domestic violence and the ramifications of removing a child from the mother.

“I don’t think people realize how many children don’t come into the system every day,” Bock said. “We get 12,000 [domestic abuse] reports a month in L.A. County, and a fraction of those result in removal of children.”

But she also noted that “if something goes wrong, society and the media are the first to say, ‘Why did you leave the child there?’ ”

Deanne Tilton-Durfee, executive director of Los Angeles’ Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, successfully lobbied last month for more than $53 million in Proposition 10 tobacco tax money for a five-year program to help child abuse victims and their families, including cases related to domestic violence. Part of the money will go to the sheriff’s STOP program.

“No one wants to see women revictimized; no one wants to see children ripped out of their homes,” Tilton-Durfee said. “But we know children are dying in those homes, and they are being emotionally harmed.”