Family Court Decisions About Child Custody in the Context of Intimate Partner Violence

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Intimate partner violence (IPV) is common among divorcing parents who are unable to develop custody and visitation agreements on their own. Despite mandates requiring courts to factor IPV into custody and visitation decisions, studies indicate they often fail to do so. This study investigates decisions made in family court settings regarding the custody and visitation of minor children when IPV has been documented. Using administrative court records of 472 cases the following questions will be addressed: What are the patterns of IPV documentation in civil and criminal records, and how is documented IPV reflected in custody and visitation agreements? When and how is documented IPV associated with safer custody and visitation agreements? Then, among a subset of 190 divorce cases for which we have self-report data from mothers, we ask: Are self-reported physical and/or sexual violence and documented IPV associated with one another? What additional risk and protective factors are associated with custody and visitation agreements and the safety of those agreements when IPV is documented? Finally, how do custody and visitation agreements and the safety of those agreements for mothers with documented IPV compare to those who self-report physical and/or sexual violence that is not documented in court records? This study addresses a critical need to narrow the gap between research and family court practice and policy, and will contribute to the advancement of theory in several areas, including IPV, custody, courts and decision-making, legal implementation, and legal impact. In addition, this study can inform the development of protocols and assessment tools for identifying IPV in family court practice and, once identified, models for ensuring attention to safety in custody and visitation agreements. Phase I of this two-phase study will extract data from four sets of administrative records for divorce cases: divorce, family court, protective order, and criminal. The specific aims are to: (1) describe the presence, form, and timing (i.e., prior to and/or during the divorce case) of documentation of IPV against divorcing mothers in civil and criminal records, and examine how the documentation of IPV is associated with custody and visitation agreements and the safety of those agreements; and (2) among cases with IPV documented prior to the divorce case, identify parent, child, divorce process, and IPV-related factors that differentiate whether IPV is or is not documented in the divorce case file, and among cases with IPV documented in the divorce file, identify parent, child, divorce process, and IPV-related factors associated with custody and visitation agreements and the safety of those agreements. In Phase II, the administrative data from Phase I will be merged with additional variables collected during a recently completed study of mothers recruited within 12 weeks of a divorce filing. The aims of Phase II are to: (1) explore the association between self-reported IPV and presence of IPV documentation in civil and criminal records; and (2) identify mothers' self-reported perceptual and attitudinal factors (e.g., hostility, positive attitudes) and indicators of risk or threat (e.g., severity of IPV, controlling behaviors) that are associated with custody and visitation agreements and the safety of those agreements. Differences between mothers with self-reported and documented IPV in the divorce case file and mothers with self-reported but undocumented IPV will be examined. Bivariate and multivariate analyses will be conducted to examine patterns of IPV documentation and factors associated with custody and visitation agreements and the safety of those agreements. The inclusion of data from a subset of mothers early in the divorce process provides a unique opportunity to identify self-report factors that, in conjunction with data from administrative records, provide a better understanding of custody and visitation agreements in the context of IPV.