Factors associated with child custody evaluators' recommendations in cases of intimate partner violence

Abstract

Although child custody evaluations can lead to unsafe outcomes in cases of intimate partner violence (IPV), little is known about factors associated with evaluators' recommendations. In this study of 465 child custody evaluators, we investigated the association between evaluators' beliefs, background, and knowledge and their custody and visitation recommendations in cases involving IPV. We hypothesized that evaluators' belief in false allegations by the mother and their recommendations that perpetrators have custody or unsupervised visits would be positively associated with (a) being a male evaluator, (b) patriarchal norms, (c) not knowing a survivor of IPV, and (d) less knowledge of IPV. In addition, we hypothesized that evaluators' belief in false allegations by mothers would be related to their recommendation that perpetrators have custody or unsupervised visits. Results supported most of the hypothesized relationships. Multivariate analysis revealed that belief variables explained more of the variance in custody-visitation outcomes than demographic and knowledge variables. Implications of the findings for IPV training, evaluator selection, and evaluation guidelines are provided.