Generally speaking, the use of contempt as a mechanism to modify behavior in Juvenile Court is rarely used in abuse, neglect and dependency cases. The reason for this is not hard to figure out considering that Juvenile Courts are statutorily mandated to protect the juvenile in such a way that respects family autonomy. In such a context, it almost appears unseemly to threaten incarceration of a parent when one is trying to preserve family autonomy. But such a view is a particualrly narrow one and doesn't consider the long term implications of drug or alcohol abuse or domestic violence (among the more prevailant problems juvenile court parents face) for family autonomy. If juvenile courts truly wish to nurture families and make them whole once again by reunifying children, they must only do so when it reunification can safely be done. This implies a fundamental change from the ususal business in the household which has historically created an unsafe household. While it certainly is simplistic to say, fundamental change at its core must include abstinence from behavior which is going to continue to cause safety issues for children.
How is abstinence from problematic behavior to come about, one might reasonable ask, given that in many cases such behavior is longstanding and deeply entrenched? Clearly (and at risk of sounding like Judge Posner) the solution is in part found in increasing the opportunity cost of engaging in such problematic behavior. If there is a clear and present danger of going to jail every time that one uses street drugs, or abuses alcohol, or gets into a knock-down-drag-out with someone else in the household, one would expect that such behavior would be significantly diminished. That is the view of the Food and Drug Administration and the Surgeon General as they up and up the cost of a pack of cigarretes to cost prohibitive levels: certain extreme cost modifies socially unacceptable behavior. If such an approach can effectively reduce the incidence of smoking in the United States, perhaps similar in-roads can be made in the area of alcohol abuse, drug addiction, and domestic violence by employing a similar model in Juvenile Courts.
But the question must be asked: is there any such worry of certain, prohibitive cost in the typical Juvenile Court, that consequences will immediately accompany unwise action? Sadly, the answer is in the negative. As a consequence, parents of children who are adjudicated in Juvenile Court because of their problematic behavior continue to engage in this problematic behavior because they don't see any reason to stop in the short term and the long term is too far away to give any credible thought to it. It is these same parents, after their children are in DSS custody for twelve months, who are utterly shocked when the court changes the plan from reunification to guardianship or termination of parental rights and adoption.
"Spare the rod and spoil the child", that's the contemporay American vernacular for Old Testament wisdom regarding proper parenting. Regardless of where one stands on corporal punishment, what everyone can agree upon is that proper childhood development requires some degree of discipline, the discipline being administered lovingly to admonish more than to punish, to redirect behavior more than to condemn it. Why not apply proper parenting technique to parents who have historically demonstrated that they need redirection and a new model for behavior?
Certainly, jail is not fun. Nor is it cheap. Nor is it the solution every time. But if one knew for a near certainty that one was going to go to jail for every careless, wilful mistep, how likely would it be that contempt would have to be used every time? The contempt power afforded the Juvenile Court pursuant to General Statute 7B-904(e) affords the court with carrot and stick to drive proper parental behavior, to steer parents clear of a path which leads straight to termination and to responsibly work toward the preservation of family autonomy. What's more, this power does not depend on a motion from a party but may be invoked ". . .on the court's own motion."The question is, will the supreme parent exercise itself appropriate parenting technique or will it choose to perpetuate the cycle of neglect, this time on a much higher societal level?
