How Should Courts Deal With False Allegations of Abuse and Neglect?

 I think this is one of those things that everyone knows is happening, but courts are afraid to acknowledge the problem because it seems impossible to deal with and it's easier to say that these kinds of problems are so extraordinarily rare that we don't need to have any information or procedures to deal with them. However, there are ways to deal with this and research on false allegations of abuse and neglect in custody cases has existed since 1990-- it's just that it doesn't seem to have been used by family courts. Wakefield and Underwager presented their findings about false sexual abuse accusations during custody disputes in 1990  at two different academic conferences. They found that while falsely accusing parents were sometimes just angry and bitter, they were more likely to have a personality disorder. They found that allegations of sexual abuse were more commonly used as a weapon by women in divorce proceedings, though men sometimes used them too, though typically they directed the allegations at the mother's new husband or another family member of the mother's. 

They recommended over thirty years ago (though their recommendation has not been adopted):

 “The personality characteristics of the parties involved when accusations of sexual abuse surface in a bitter divorce and custody should be considered in evaluating the allegations. In the absence of corroborating evidence, when the parent making the accusation is disturbed and the accused is psychologically normal, a false accusation should be considered.”

Also of note is that individuals with personality disorders are also at risk for factitious disorder, a disorder in which they imagine health problems for themselves or their child (Mayo Clinic, 2019). These imagined health problems for the child are another way a parent could try to gain leverage in a divorce. A 1998 study from Canada also delved into the issue of false allegations of abuse and neglect during custody disputes. The authors found that while intentionally fabricated reports of neglect are rare, constituting 4% of their sample, the rate of intentionally fabricated reports was three times higher in cases where there was a divorce or custody dispute. 12% of all CPS cases where there was a divorce or custody dispute involved were intentionally fabricated with fathers and third parties being the most likely to file a false report in their sample (Trocme and Bala, 2005). Based on the differences in accusers between the two studies, a viable hypothesis might be that women are more likely to use sexual abuse allegations as a weapon while men are more likely to use allegations of neglect and other abuse and might be more likely to get CPS involved.

Individuals with high narcissistic traits will also use court proceedings to continue to control their victims and false accusations of abuse, projecting their own issues into their victim and dragging out court proceedings (Hammond, 2016). This fits with the observed phenomenon of fathers and third parties filing false reports of neglect in Trocme and Balana's research. Relevant to the issue of false CPS reports is Hollida and Underwagener’s (1990) finding that a survey of social workers showed that in about 15% of cases, social workers suspected the report was made in bad faith.

Narcissists are inclined to use emotional abuse and manipulation tactics to get at their victim. These often won’t end up getting any kind of physical abuse conviction as is the case with a battery, but can be emotionally devastating to the both the other parent and the children. Grapsas et al. (2019) explained that

 “Narcissists will be inclined to derogate others when they appraise that situational status demands exceed their resources for self-promotion. For example, when confronted by a formidable status competitor, narcissists might be more inclined to exert effort into defaming the competitor because doing so can potentially damage that person’s reputation and thus decrease that person’s status. The gravitation toward other-derogation is especially significant in situations in which the narcissist may not be able to achieve his/her goal by his/her merits. A large body of research suggests that when narcissists are criticized, humiliated, or outperformed by others, they seek to derogate them”. 

This is consistent with the phenomenon of false abuse allegations, especially from parents with personality disorders, during a divorce. They may realize that they don't have the resources emotionally and mentally and sometimes financially or physically to adequately care for the children and "win" custody, so they resort to defaming the other parent in order to get custody. Custody for these parents is probably not about what's best for the children, but rather about reputation, prestige and control. And when a parent who isn't able to adequately take care of the children gets custody through false allegations, the children are the ones who will pay the price, not the courts.

References

Grapsas, S., Brummelman, E., Back, M.D., Denissen, J.J.A. (2019). The “Why” and “How” of Narcissism: A Process Model of Narcissistic Status Pursuit. Perspectives on Psychological Science 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619873350

Hammond, C. (2016). How Narcissists Use the Courts to Continue Their Abuse. Psych Central. https://psychcentral.com/pro/exhausted-woman/2016/03/how-narcissists-use-the-courts-to-continue-their-abuse#1

Trocme, N. And Bala, N. (2005). False allegations of abuse and neglect when parents separate. Child Abuse and Neglect, 29(12). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2004.06.016

Wakefield, H. and Underwager, R. (1990). Personality Characteristics of Parents Making False Accusations of Sexual abuse in Custody Disputes. Institute for Psychological Therapies. http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume2/j2_3_1.htm