[GregT] I work with the courts. The fact is that there are a large number of nuisance litigants of dubious mental health who take up a disproportionate amount of the system's time making unfounded and ridiculous allegations that have to be investigated because everyone will look foolish if they turn up their nose at the one time it turns out to be for real. On top of that, there honestly is a massive amount of fabrication and exaggeration that goes on in and around family law proceedings (on the sides of both genders). A parent who honestly feels like their children will be worse-off living with the ex, and who is subject to a lot of stress and emotion as a result of a terrible break-up, can sometimes not care about the means if the end is the perceived protection of their children.
And then there's the additional problems required by compulsory reporting obligations on some professions - where suspicions are required to be reported regardless of whether they're well-founded to avoid a criminal liability for not reporting them - and then an additional reservoir of people who've joined P&C organisations, religious communities, or sport and other children's extracurricular activity groups because of social isolation and will over-report as a way of creating drama and importance for their own lives.
It's an open question as to whether ten false positives are worthwhile to avoid one false negative but it's indisuptable that there *are* a very large number of false positives generated as a result of the (at least partly well-founded) cultural and legislative paranoia over child abuse and molestation.
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Date: 2009-07-28 04:19 am (UTC)And then there's the additional problems required by compulsory reporting obligations on some professions - where suspicions are required to be reported regardless of whether they're well-founded to avoid a criminal liability for not reporting them - and then an additional reservoir of people who've joined P&C organisations, religious communities, or sport and other children's extracurricular activity groups because of social isolation and will over-report as a way of creating drama and importance for their own lives.
It's an open question as to whether ten false positives are worthwhile to avoid one false negative but it's indisuptable that there *are* a very large number of false positives generated as a result of the (at least partly well-founded) cultural and legislative paranoia over child abuse and molestation.