Howdy,
First want to give a shout-out to our newbie member JW_Researcher. thanks for the article. keep up the tremendous work!
Finished reviewing Carolyn R. Wah's (Associate General Counsel for the WTBTS) paper in the Review of Religious Research, (2001, Vol. 42:4, Pges 372-286) published by the Religious Research Association.
(BTW I emailed the executive director an asked whether Ms. Wah or the WTS were enrolled members or not. Members may submit papers for free and others pay $15. Membership is only $30 and Ms. Wah has had at least two papers published in the journal. I don't think it would be a huge deal if either she or the WT were enrolled as members, even though the "about" section states that the RRA is an "interfaith association" but then again I don't think the UN-DPI thing was a major deal either. Still it will be interesting to see if she is or if the WT is a member.)
Anyway, if you have ever been remotely interested in the topic, this paper of Ms. Wah's was completely fascinating and very educational.
what it is, is a summary of a study conducted by the Society for the three year period of 1996-8 and the Society's/Ms. Wah's conclusions. She uses the pronoun "our" so I assume she speaks on behalf of the Society.
Quick background:
As described by Wah, as announced in the KMs, when a child-custody case arose the body of elders were to write the Society to request the package. the Society first sent out a "Child Custody Questionnaire" which contained among other things questions about the persons involved and whether the body recommended that the "Watchtower provide legal assistance." If a questionnaire was received then a file was opened and maintained as either active or closed. It was closed if there was some disposition of the matter.
Some things I learned:
- (confirmation of what I suspected) which is that the "Preparing for Child Custody" brochure as available you know where, and as "reviewed" by Randy W. and Duane Magnani is the 1980s out of date version. Ms. Wah refers to the new version entitled "Preparing for a Child Custody Case Involving Religious Issue" (1997). It is my hunch that the brochure and package of case materials has been updated by WT legal since then. Does anyone happen to have this newer version or know where it may be available?
- (confirmation of what seemed evident) which is that the procedure changed in the mid-1980s from simply giving the info to Witnesses who requested it to going through the local Elders request and also that the Society began providing direct legal assistance (counsel) for representation of Witnesses at trial and in appeal for those "recommended" by their local Elders to receive such help
- the study conducted by the WTS concluded that although many of the cases initially raised a religious issue, such issue was only dispositive in 6% of the cases.
Some interesting stats from the study:
- For the 3 years, 684 questionnaires were returned (since Wah doesn't mention how many actual requests were received, evidently the legal dept's records only contained the records of returned questionnaires/files created) of these 684 cases only 456 were known outcomes (closed files) and this served as the basis for the statistics. Interestingly, Wah says that they (the Society) believes this number to be more representative of the true population of such cases and not a sample (i.e. they believe this number represents closely the actual number of such cases). If we agree with that assumption and spread it out over the three years, it means that there were about 225 cases a year.
- the JW (getting assistance) was female 60-64% and 36-40% the JW was male for the three years
- 77% of the cases involved a non-JW spouse
- In 49% of the cases, the JW was a baptized JW prior to marriage (makes one wonder whether these findings influenced the ramp ups in marrying "only in the Lord" message. Also this finding led Wah to conclude that religion was probably not a factor in the marital discord which seems to me to be too much of an assumption.) (Also the majority of marriages broke of in less than 10 years)
- The "nature of the complaints" of the non-JW broke down like this: Holidays an Issue (31%), General lifestyle (26%), Blood an Issue (23%), Meeting Attendance (20%). [I am shocked that Blood was not more of an issue and in my opinion both it, and also the issues pertaining to safety (aka sex abuser concerns) should or could be more of a focus of opposing counsel).
- Religion was a factor in the child-custody dispute only 26% of the time
- And again in only 26 actual cases representing only 6% of cases were restrictions imposed by the court upon the JW parent.
- Of these restrictions they included: taking the child in service, taking the child to the KH, conducting a Bible study with the child, and giving the medical decision authority to the Non-JW parent
- What was not indicated in the paper was the breakdown of comparison of custody disposition, in other words, how many of the cases resulted in the Non-Jw being giving physical and/or joint-legal custody
Stats that were REALLY interesting:
- In a whopping 68% of the cases the local Elders were completely unaware of "prior existing difficulties" of the person before they became a JW, including illicit drug usage. [Frankly, I am not too shocked at this finding because it seems that it is rare that the Elders get to know new studies well or are interested in anything about their past, but only their commitment to and acceptance of "the truth" (aka program)
- In only 27% percent of the cases did the Elders "recommend" that the Society render legal aid to the JW. [let's all speculate as to the reason for this. was the person not "good enough"? Did the Elders not want to waste the Society's money or the WT lawyer's time? I mean this was unbelievable to me to have the Society willing to provide free legal help to the flock and for the Elders in only about a quarter of the time to recommend that they actually give such aid to the faithful. Astonishing.]
Overall, the paper is really interesting. Obviously, there is nothing particularly damaging to the Society and actually the findings of the study support that religion is not particularly a major issue in child-custody cases.
BUT, should it be? Are the courts missing something? In the introduction section, Ms. Wah set out what is the "strict standard" in many states, namely that a court will consider religion only in the case where it is evident that it would present a clear harm to the child ("clear and affirmative evidence of imminent harm"). However, that is NOT the standard in all states. In many there is no clear standard and in others, a lesser standard is used.
Well I am still working on my "Guide for Counsel" so hopefully I might have something further to contribute to this discussion in the future.
In the meantime, if you are interested in this, you should get a copy and read the paper for yourself.
-Eduardo
Overall the study is