Violence prompts closer look at plight of divorced fathers
Monday, November 25, 2002 BY DAVID CRARY Associated Press
One divorced father committed suicide on the steps of San Diego's courthouse,
while another set his car afire outside Alaska's child support office. Others,
in an all-too-common scenario, killed their ex-wives, their children, then
themselves.
Men who snap in such violent ways have few defenders. Yet fathers' rights
groups, joined by a few academic experts, see a common denominator in these
recent bursts of rage, and ask whether America's family court system could be
partly at fault by deepening the despair of many divorced men.
"None of these guys are poster children," said Lowell Jaks,
president of the Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents Rights. "But when you
cause this much pain to so many men, there are going to be repercussions -- a
certain percentage are going to crack."
Women's groups and government officials doubt that courtroom bias is the
cause for most of these destructive outbursts; some experts say divorced men
simply experience more isolation after divorce than women. But Jaks is convinced
of his position.
He has even distributed newspaper articles to his organization's members
noting the problems with child custody and child support that angered John
Muhammad, the alleged Washington-area sniper, and Robert S. Flores Jr., who
killed three University of Arizona nursing professors before killing himself.
"Some guys kill themselves, some snap and go out and kill others,"
Jaks said. "You can dismiss them as crackpots, you can say we need more
protection for women, but it's not going to take away the problem."
Augustine Kposowa, a sociologist at the University of California-Riverside,
has conducted studies concluding that suicide rates among divorced men are much
higher than for divorced women or married men. He attributes the difference to
what happens in family courts.
"Decades ago, the pendulum swung in favor of the men, but clearly in the
past two decades the system is stacking up against men," Kposowa said in a
telephone interview.
"The man loses his marriage, then he loses a second time when child
custody is granted to the woman," he said. "Unless something is done,
by examining family laws and having new policies to aid men, the situation is
bound to get worse."
Extrapolating from Kposowa's research, fathers' rights activist David Roberts
contends that child-support orders -- part of what he calls "the war on
fathers" -- contribute to the suicides of more than 5,000 divorced fathers
each year.
Roberts, president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children,
concedes that his estimate is unprovable and that suicides often may stem more
from personality factors than legal bias.
Outside the fathers' rights ranks, government officials and leaders of
women's groups acknowledge that divorce and custody procedures are often
imperfect. But they don't believe the courts can be blamed systematically for
divorced fathers' actions.
Joey Binard of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges said
states are shifting away from the traditional presumption that mothers should
get post-divorce custody of children. Many states now say preference should go
to the parent most involved with the children, she said, "but that still
leaves men on the short end of the stick, because most are not primary
caretakers."
Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Health
and Human Services Department, stressed repeatedly in an interview that divorced
men who commit violence are "the rare exception." However, Horn said
men commonly experience depression or other mental health problems after a
divorce.
Frustrations over child support and visitation figured in several recent
violent incidents across the country. Among them:
In San Diego, a man upset by a court ruling on overdue child support fatally
shot himself in January on the courthouse steps. Witnesses said Derrick K.
Miller Sr., 43, who was carrying court documents, told a guard, "You did
this to me," before killing himself.
In Anchorage, Jed Magby, 43, set his Mercedes afire in October outside the
offices of Alaska's Child Support Enforcement Division, apparently because of
claims that he owed $55,000 for out-of-state child support orders. He faces
charges of arson and criminal mischief.
In Tamaqua, Pa., police seized firearms and grenades in March at the home of
a man who had threatened local officials because he was upset over a
child-support order. Edward Nesgoda pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and
other charges and was sentenced to up to 23 months in prison.
In February, James D. Smallwood Jr. killed his three children, who normally
lived with his estranged wife in Throckmorton, Texas, but were visiting him for
one night. Smallwood drove back to Throckmorton with the dead children in his
car, then killed himself when he heard sirens approaching. A judge ruled earlier
that Smallwood, who had been accused of making threats, could have the children
on "quasi-supervised" visitations.
National suicide statistics do not provide a comprehensive look at marital
details -- for example, whether a male suicide victim was a divorced father who
lost custody of his children.
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.
