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Handbook of Youth and Justice pp 411–435Cite as

The Child Custody Standard

What Do Twenty Years of Research Teach Us?

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Part of the book series: The Plenum Series in Crime and Justice ((PSIC))

Abstract

Although divorce rates in the United States appear to be on the decline, the legal process of divorce and the psychological, social, and economic problems associated with it are still a common experience for many children. Estimates predict that over 40% of all children will be confronted with and will have to adjust to the legal divorce of their parents (Bahr, Howe, Mann, & Bahr, 1994). Yet, contrary to public perception, a substantially smaller percentage of these children will have the structure of their future custodial relationship with their parents resolved through adversarial litigation in the court system (Bahr et al., 1994). Exact projections of custody disputes determined by court litigation are difficult to calculate, but large-scale empirical studies completed in different jurisdictions have found that 6–20% of all child custody cases are eventually decided in the courtroom (Bahr et al., 1994; Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992; Melton, Petrilia, Poythress, & Slobogin, 1997; Santilla & Roberts, 1990). While contested custody disputes are thought to have the greatest negative psychological impact on the children involved, it is widely believed that the process of divorce itself is likely to generate substantial, long-term, negative psychological sequelae in children. Empirical support for this belief is substantial; empirical studies have estimated that approximately 16% of children of divorce report clinical levels of maladjustment (Fiddler & Saunders, 1988) and that children of divorce are two to three times more likely to experience emotional problems than children from intact families (Akre, 1992).1

Some reviews of the psychological literature, however, indicate that the effecst of divorce on children may not be as severe as social sciemtists and the general public orinally believed (Amato & Keith, 1991; Bricklin, 1995; Kelly, 1993).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California, 91711-6420, USA

    Daniel A. Krauss

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 85721, USA

    Bruce D. Sales

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  1. Daniel A. Krauss
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  2. Bruce D. Sales
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA

    Susan O. White

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Krauss, D.A., Sales, B.D. (2001). The Child Custody Standard. In: White, S.O. (eds) Handbook of Youth and Justice. The Plenum Series in Crime and Justice. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1289-9_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1289-9_21

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