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Overview and Assessment of
Approaches to Access Enforcement
2001-FCY-8E
NATURE AND SCOPE OF UNWARRANTED ACCESS DENIAL AND OF NON-EXERCISE OF CHILD ACCESS (cont'd)
Strengths and Weakness of Available Data
The precise scope of access denial and of failure to exercise access is unknown, in part because claims about these problems are made within highly polarized and highly politicized contexts. During the hearings of the Special Joint Committee on Child Custody and Access, described as a "war zone"
of gender politics (Bala, 1999; Laing, 1999), fathers’ rights groups stated that access denial was a widespread problem, and women’s groups stated that failure to exercise access or irregular exercise of access was a widespread problem (Laing, 1999). Fathers’ rights advocates in the United States have estimated that the custodial parent denies or interferes with access in 37 percent of cases (National Council for Children’s Rights Inc., 1991). It is unclear to which cases these fathers’ rights advocates were referring, but if they were referring to all cases involving a non-custodial parent, the figure they cited is far higher than that found
by any researcher and clearly exaggerated.
Apart from political rhetoric, interviews with individual custodial and non-custodial parents are likely to yield other results other than noted above because custodial and non-custodial parents are differently situated and have varying perspectives on the access arrangements. The non-custodial fathers Richardson interviewed complained about access denial, while the custodial mothers complained that fathers did not exercise their access rights or did so only erratically and unpredictably. Richardson commented that "it is unclear which of these issues is the larger problem"
(Richardson, 1988: 163), but he concluded that when men "are not in contact with their children, this does not seem to be a result of the former wife denying them access"
(Richardson, 1988: ix). Most research indicates that failure to exercise access is a bigger problem than denial of access (Perry et al., 1992: XIII; Wallerstein & Lewis, 1998: 374-375).
In assessing the scope of access denial and failure to exercise access, it is also important to note the fluidity of access relationships. Cases may switch from one category to the other. Denial of access or discouragement by the custodial parent may lead the non-custodial parent to fail to exercise access.(8) Conversely, a parent who initially failed to exercise access or exercised access inconsistently may later pursue access and be denied.(9) It should also be noted that in some cases failure to exercise access and denial of access may seem to occur simultaneously: some non-custodial parents fail to exercise access or do so erratically while at the same time they pursue their access rights or other claims in court, apparently in an attempt to harass or control the custodial parent.(10)
Reasons offered for lack of contact between non-custodial parents and their children are various, and a distinction may be drawn between reasons offered by custodial and non-custodial parents, third parties and researchers. The differing reasons of custodial and non-custodial parents likely reflect an underestimation by many parents of their own responsibility for the problem and the greater knowledge each parent has about his or her own circumstances and motivations. Researchers too may overemphasize the responsibility of one parent, particularly if their sample group includes only custodial parents or only non-custodial parents.
