Broken Homes: A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment

by Joanna C. Colcord

The domestic relations court, whether separate or as part of a family court, ought to have equity powers, so that the usual rules of evidence need not be so closely adhered to and more latitude could be allowed the magistrate in disposing of cases, not necessarily according to ruling and precedent but according to the social needs disclosed. A constitutional amendment now pending in New York is a model for this sort of legislation. It is in part as follows:

"The legislature may establish children's courts and courts of domestic relations as separate courts or parts of existing courts, or courts hereafter to be created, and may confer upon them such equity and other jurisdiction as may be necessary for the correction, protection, guardianship and disposition of delinquent, neglected or dependent minors, and for the punishment and correction of adults responsible for or contributing to such delinquency, neglect or dependency, and to compel the support of a wife, child or poor relative by persons legally chargeable therewith who abandon or neglect to support any of them."[50]

Many courts of domestic relations which now exercise equity powers, such as ordering that a man remain away from home or that a wife allow her husband to see his children at stated times, do so without actual legal warrant and subject at any time to appeal of counsel. The conferring of equity powers on courts of domestic relations is a form of protection both to the court and to its clients which social workers should stand ready to work for.

Juvenile courts have in the main outstripped the domestic relations courts in the use of physicians and psychiatrists. The best examples of both these courts have, however, facilities for the making of physical examinations and mental tests, where necessary, before adjudication. Judge Hoffman says that the fact that so many cases in courts of domestic relations disclose abnormal or perverted sex habits, makes important the services of a psychiatrist accustomed to diagnosing these conditions.[51]

In most states the jurisdiction of the courts of domestic relations should be extended and co-ordinated. Few states escape some glaring inconsistencies in the laws governing desertion and abandonment. There is, for instance, much confusion between states as to whether a woman whose husband brings her to a strange city and there deserts her must prosecute him in the city where their home is or where the desertion took place. Under certain circumstances the woman is forced to travel to the city where her husband has gone, and bring action against him there, if the courts in that place will entertain a suit. In New York state there is no law which covers the case of a man who abandons his wife while she is pregnant, if there is no other living child. To constitute an extraditable crime there must have been abandonment of a child in esse not merely in posse.

But no institution, however carefully established by law, is any more effective than the people who run it; and the usefulness of the domestic relations court in any community depends entirely upon the social-mindedness and freedom from political entanglement of the judge and the amount and quality of probation service. From a social point of view, the latter is more important than the former; for a bad decision of the court can be mitigated by good case work later on, while a poor probation officer may nullify the effects of the wisest judicial decision ever made.

The importance of having enough probation officers to handle the work of the court has already been touched upon. An overworked officer is perforce an inefficient officer. He has usually to spend at least half his time in the court and attending to the clerical end of his job. From 50 to 60 cases is probably all that one probation officer can be expected to handle thoroughly at one time, if, as is to be hoped, he is required to make careful preliminary investigations to be presented to the judge before the trial.

In training and in equipment for the job, probation officers should be the equals of case workers in private agencies. Examinations for probation officers ought to be conducted by social workers of skill and high standards. A few months of cramming at a civil service school, or a few weeks of volunteer visiting with some case working agency, should not suffice to enable candidates to pass the examinations. The standards should be high enough and the salaries sufficiently attractive to draw into this field people who have successfully completed their apprenticeship in the art of case work. Only then can the status of the probation officer be raised to what it should be in the court itself. The relation of the probation officer to the judge ought to be exactly like the relation of the medical social worker to the physician—that of a person acting under his direction in a general way, but with a special contribution to make to the treatment of the case and with a recognized standing as an expert in his own particular field.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] Now changed to The National Conference of Social Work.