"Blue Ribbon Panel" Finds Flaws in New York State's Custody Evaluation System
The State charged the Commission with examining the well-documented flaws in forensic custody evaluations. There are systemic biases and inequities.
A “Blue Ribbon Panel”, as it was titled, convened in the summer of 2021 and in January 2022, the “Commission” produced its results.
The findings showed major flaws in the system. Find the report here.
Here is part of the conclusion.
Judges order forensic evaluations to provide relevant information regarding the “best interest of the child(ren),” and some go far beyond an assessment of whether either party has a mental health condition that has affected their parental behavior. In their analysis, evaluators may rely on principles and methodologies of dubious validity. In some custody cases, because of lack of evidence or the inability of parties to pay for expensive challenges of an evaluation, defective reports can thus escape meaningful scrutiny and are often accepted by the court, with potentially disastrous consequences for the parents and children.
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