Legal construction of dangerous families: Drawing boundaries between 'us' and 'them

This content analysis of judicial opinions involving family violence includes criminal and civil appellate court cases from California, Maryland, and West Virginia where there are allegations of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse of the children or domestic violence between adults who have children in their family or household. These cases are analyzed to investigate the boundaries of the family; that is, to determine what parental failings are deemed so reprehensible that the law limits or refuses to recognize the family relationships among the members. The narratives judges construct from the records and parties before them sometimes resonate with broader cultural narratives about parenthood, gender, social status, morality, and ethics. Other times, the judicial stories blatantly clash with broader ideas about social justice.;Analysis reveals a number of patterns. Women who do not abuse their children are penalized and stigmatized in (primarily) civil cases for poor partner choices when their current or former partners abuse them or their children. While civil courts will opine at considerable length about the failings of mothers who abuse or neglect their children, or who allow others to abuse their kids, little attention is accorded to the low character of fathers who do the same. Courts sometimes award batterers and molesters custody or lighter sentences for the very characteristics that made them successful abusers including prestige, adopting a facade of remorse, and using power dynamics in the family to win the support of bystanders to the violence or exploitation. Courts more often avoid this pitfall when the abuser presents a generally despicable package: being disrespectful to the court, having low esteem in the community, maintaining a poor employment record and prospects, exhibiting no attempt to display remorse, and perpetrating generalized brutality against family members. Stories of family violence typically represent a departure from the family's story of itself prior to its legal entanglements as normal, healthy, and loving. The new story may lack appropriate evidence due to the family's intentional covering, may be recanted under family pressure, or may be told by a child too young to be eligible to bear witness in court.