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Possible Consequences Of False Accusations A consideration often overlooked by prosecutors, law enforcement, child protection, and judges is the effect on a child if adults make a false positive mistake. When adults treat a child who has not been abused, as if the child had been abused, it is not an innocuous or benign experience for the child. It is devastating and runs a high risk of causing a child to be psychotic. It is an assault upon a young child's ability to develop the capacity to tell what is real from what is not real. There is a little discussion of this type of error but a growing body of research on the issue. A false negative error, missing real abuse, may also be harmful to a child. In either direction, adult errors may have tragic consequences for a child. Most recently, a study by Westminster College, part of Oxford University, examined the effect of a false accusation on the children and concluded the impact was like that of growing up in a war zone. It was as if the children had been raised in Beirut (Prosser & Lewis, 1992; Prosser, 1995 a, 1995b) Davis & Reppucci (1992) also report on the harm done to children, including siblings, by a false accusation. Specific damage done to children by a false accusation include precipitating suicide (Smith, 1991), school failure and delinquency (Richardson, 1990), and destruction of the family (Schultz, 1989). When a child who has not been abused is treated by adults who have concluded the child has been abused. it is tragically the case that the adults teach the child to be a victim. If a child continuously denies the abuse the adult believes in, the adult does not accept that no abuse occurred. Instead, the adult concludes the child is dissociating, repressing the memory, and may give a diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder. The child is then coerced and forced to develop this most serious iatrogenic malady. The end result may well be the destruction of the child for any normal adult life. Putting together the above considerations, the risk of a child who has not been abused being treated with sexual abuse therapy can be avoided and the serious negative consequences of being forced to undergo wrong headed or inappropriate therapy, whether abused or not, can be averted by ordering no sexual abuse therapy. If the child has behavior problems, they can be treated successfully by behavioral methods without anything approaching the usual harmful sexual abuse therapy. If the adjudicatory process determines the child was abused, there is then ample time and opportunity to find and use an effective sexual abuse therapy if it is needed. If a mistake is made and a false accusation is judged to be true, two people are hurt — the child and the accused. The nonabused child has been subjected to a process of interrogation and often to sexual abuse therapy that is confusing and potentially iatrogenic. The falsely accused adult is likely to suffer emotional and physical trauma, family breakdown, and economic hardship (Schultz, 1989). His relationship with his child may be irretrievably damaged. Sources of Pain Reported by Three or More Falsely Accused Respondents Loss of reputation and dignity. Loss of contact with a loved child and the opportunity to express the love they felt. Feeling hated by a person who used to love them. Loss of the opportunity to see grandchildren. Loss of emotional relationship with spouse. Fear of demonstrating spontaneous love for children. Feeling constrained by a fear of possible legal actions. Even if an allegation is eventually judged to be false, the family, including the alleged child victim, will have been severely traumatized by the allegation. Schultz (1989) surveying one hundred families falsely charged with sexual abuse, found that almost all reported major disruption and trauma. Davis and Reppucci (1992) surveyed eighty-five men who had claimed to have been falsely charged with abusing their children or stepchildren. Almost all, regardless of whether they had been found guilty of abuse or not, reported a variety of negative effects in diverse areas of their lives. Robson (1991) comments on the aftermath for the Scott County, Minnesota, families, in which twenty-five adults were accused of abusing their own and other children. The charges were dropped after the only one to go to trial ended in an acquittal and the children eventually were returned home. However, the families all experienced severe dysfunction and distress, and "perhaps permanent emotional damage to the accused and the accusers alike" (p.50). Weinbach (1987) remarks: "Acquittal of charges cannot undo the damage. Even unsupported charges tend to leave lingering doubt among friends, family, and associates" (p. 532). A study of thirty families where erroneous charges of sexual abuse were made was recently carried out in England by Westminster College, Oxford. The study examined the process of investigation, outcomes, and the effects on children, parents, and extended families. All suffered post-traumatic shock. The report also suggests that the type of counseling required by these families is unique and the closest model is that of victims of violence. They are disabled because an external force has assaulted them and torn their lives apart (Prosser and Lewis 1992). If an abused child is traumatized by the consequences of a sexual abuse disclosure, investigation, and justice system involvement, the effects can be even worse for a child who has, in fact, not been abused. Not only may the child be placed in foster care or be separated from a parent, but the child is often put in sexual abuse therapy where the false allegation is encouraged and reinforced. The child may be forced to be fixated on feelings of having been abused and to talk about the abuse and the abuser for months or even years. This kind of therapy experience can be an assault on the child's developing ability to differentiate reality from fantasy. This is the kind of harm that can be done to children and families. If it is the case, as Homer and Guyer (1991a, 1991b) suggest, that for every false negative there are over twenty false positives, the sheer amount of human misery and anguish caused by the system that aims at protecting children demands an immediate improvement in accuracy of decision-making.
Issues In Child Abuse Accusations Dr. Ralph Underwood Phd.
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