Family Court Tragedy
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.7 • 657 Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2018
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Naomi Schaefer Riley joins City Journal editor Brian Anderson to discuss how family court in New York fails vulnerable children and how reforms could improve child-welfare.
In the New York Family Court System, judges adjudicate cases ranging from custody disputes to child abuse. As Riley reports, though, the whole system can feel like an agonizing series of hearings, trials, and meetings—often without any resolution. The process can prove detrimental to a child's emotional well-being, in addition to draining money and resources from parents.
Family court's problems may have begun with the cultural revolutions of the 1960s, but "bureaucratic incompetence, outdated technology, and weak leadership have played major roles since then," Riley observes. "These problems can be addressed meaningfully." She explains how in her City Journal feature story, "The Tragedy of Family Court."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is your host, Brian Anderson, editor of City Journal. |
| 0:05.9 | In the early 1960s, specialized family courts were established in states across the country |
| 0:11.0 | to oversee cases involving child neglect, paternity, adoption, juvenile and family offenses, |
| 0:17.4 | and child custody. These days, family courts are a crucial part of child welfare services, |
| 0:23.1 | but the system is plagued by a number of serious problems. For the most recent issue of |
| 0:28.1 | City Journal, our friend and frequent writer Naomi Schaefer Riley, visited the Queens County Family |
| 0:33.8 | Court to report on some of the proceedings that take place there. We invited Naomi into the |
| 0:39.0 | studio to talk about her experiences, and our conversation begins after this. We hope you |
| 0:44.4 | enjoy the discussion. Hello again, everyone. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. |
| 1:10.2 | Joining me on the show today is Naomi Schaefer Riley. |
| 1:13.5 | She's a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and writes regularly for City Journal and many, many other outlets. |
| 1:20.5 | Naomi's latest piece for City Journal is called The Tragedy of Family Court, and it appears in our autumn 2018 issue. Naomi, thanks for joining us. |
| 1:30.4 | Thank you. Now, first off, I want to thank you very much for writing the piece. It's certainly a |
| 1:36.0 | disturbing subject, and I hope our listeners can learn something from your description of it, |
| 1:43.2 | both in the article and in this |
| 1:45.2 | conversation today. Can you begin by giving listeners an idea of how family court, how the system |
| 1:51.0 | operates in New York? Well, family court is used for a lot of different purposes. There are obviously |
| 1:59.0 | court cases involving, for instance, the removal of children from |
| 2:02.2 | homes by the Administration for Children's Services, but it's also there to mediate internal |
| 2:07.9 | disputes and families, settle divorce cases, custody disputes, and things like that. And for the |
| 2:15.1 | article, I actually visited Queens Family Court, but every borough has one, and they're pretty difficult to watch in some ways. |
| 2:24.5 | These are state or city organizations, or both? |
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