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SBM
Respectfully, Gitana, I didn't interpret the report that way. In the first report, completed before the psychologist had the chance to view the images from Josh Powell's computer, his recommendation lists several conditions before the possibility of reunification:
To me, that is a pretty high bar to clear. "When he is no longer a subject of investigation" obviously means *if* Josh Powell were cleared; the only other way JP could no longer be a subject of investigation would be if he were convicted and clearly reunification would be impossible at that point.
And then he'd have to do significant work on his personality and parenting deficits.
That all sounds pretty legitimate to me because if Josh Powell were cleared (the matters noted were Susan's disappearance and being implicated in computerised child), then there really wouldn't be a legal reason to prevent it, as I understand it.
To me, this reads as a polite way of saying "reunification may be possible on a very icy day in hell..."
As to the recommendation in the first report to allow continuing visitation:
Again, this sounds pretty legitimate to me. I am not a lawyer or a psychologist or a judge but when I read "this is predicated on..." that suggests to me that only so long as the three conditions listed were fulfilled could visitation continue. The boys would have to want to see their father, their therapist would have to continue to agree that it was in the boys' best interests and JP would have had to curtail the ranting about the Coxes, Mormons and Jews in front of the boys (which is what the "failure to focus on the boys" refers to earlier in the report).
As I understand the current research, it strongly suggests that children benefit from contact with their family of origin when they are in foster care, either with relatives or with a non-family home.
Visitation would be under supervision at all times and JP was aware of the things the supervisor would be looking for which, if he wanted to regain custody, would tend to suppress the worst of his known behaviour with the boys.
At the moment, it feels as if the simplest common sense was abandoned here in favor of "protocol".
It would seem, in the professions of psych/soc/family law - experience would dictate that there are exceptions to the rule, and that ... Josh Powell was the perfect example of that exception to the rule that children should benefit from contact with the family of origin. Especially considering some that family was in jail for pedophilia, and the main part of that family was a suspect in their mother's disappearance.
I'm thinking the Court should have been able to arrive at this obvious conclusion and weighed in with a family court wisdom and child advocacy position that has the obligation to be not-so-damned-blind.
