Introduction to Forensic Psychology by Lenore E. Walker & David Shapiro & Stephanie Akl

Author:Lenore E. Walker & David Shapiro & Stephanie Akl
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030444709
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Uniform Family Law Models

Although the laws dealing with marriage and the family are different from state to state, there has been an attempt to develop common principles that could be used by state legislatures and higher courts to make and enforce the laws more uniformly. The American Law Institute (ALI), which we discussed earlier in Chap. 4 on criminal responsibility, in connection with the insanity laws, has also attempted to put together a document, called the ‘Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution’. This document suggests the principles that lawyers believe are important to pay attention to when developing family laws.

Actual model statutes have been suggested by the Uniform Law commission with the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, and Uniform Premarital Agreement Act. These documents are available for state legislators to use when creating their own laws and many simply adopt the entire model statute or take language from it as necessary.

Obviously, given the mobility of the people around the world, it is important to have the laws as uniform as possible from state to state and country to country or people will move simply because of a particular unique provision that fits that person’s needs. In some cases, such as those where battered women were afraid for their own and their children’s safety, there needed to be protection when a woman fled the state or country with a child for protection. Until Congress passed an exception from the Federal Kidnapping statute, these women were prosecuted under the law. One of the most celebrated cases was that of Elizabeth Morgan, who went to jail for contempt of court because she refused to tell the judge the whereabouts of her daughter, who she believed was being sexually abused by the child’s father. A well-educated and quiet spoken doctor, she claimed she would rather sit in jail than place her child back in that dangerous situation. Eventually, she was released by an Act of Congress, but not until she had spent over two years in jail for her defiance of the law. We will discuss protective moms more fully in the next chapter.

Some Federal and International domestic laws that affect marriage and the family are listed in Table 14.2. As is clear, most of these laws attempt to protect family members from lack of support or to protect children from being kidnapped and taken into other countries where one parent might have dual citizenship and out of the legal reach of the United States. The Family and Medical Leave Act passed by Congress in 1993 gives both men and women the right to take time off work to take care of family members who are ill or when a new baby is born without the fear of losing their jobs. Again, remember that since all of American social benefits accrue through employment, if someone is terminated because of the need to take a temporary leave of absence to fulfill family responsibilities, then that person would lose all the employee benefits.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.