NEW ZEALAND FAMILY LAW REPORT

The New Zealand family law system underwent an extensive review of the whole process in 1992. This report contains the recommendations resulting from that review. Among the recommendations is the establishment of a Family Conciliation Service attached to the court but separate in function to mediate the family law dispute. Judges need to take a much stronger hand in managing the cases when they come before the court.     

FAMILICIDE AND FAMILY LAW: A STUDY OF FILICIDE–SUICIDE FOLLOWING SEPARATION*

This article is based on a qualitative study undertaken in Western Australia, which examined in depth seven cases of family homicide followed by suicide where disputed custody and/or access was identified as being an issue. These offenses typically consist of one or more young children being murdered by their father, the homicide being followed by the perpetrator's suicide. Common factors are identified and suggestions made for screening and proactive management of high‐risk cases. Possible explanations of perpetrators’ motivation are proposed. Trauma effects on survivors are described. Recommendations for future policy, practice, and research are made.     

MEDIATION AND THE PROCESS OF FAMILY LAW REFORM

The family law system needs fixing. The real question is how to go about fixing it. The concept of mediation and its process should be vital in the rethinking and restructuring of the system. This article discusses how mediation can be used in policy-making to get all the stakeholders in the family law system to creatively and non-judgmentally work toward reform. The author contends that increased legal access and speedy low-cost dispute resolution should be at the top of the reform agenda. Courts and professional offices are valued for their consumer-friendliness, stressing nonadversarial settings and cleint education. Unbundling is urged to be not only accepted but also promoted as a practice to meet the legal needs of families. The article concludes with the argument that effective reform should incorporate the principles of mediation, and the reform process should take advantage of models of consumer friendliness from both the public and private sectors .     

OFFENDING TRAJECTORIES IN A NEW ZEALAND BIRTH COHORT*

In this paper, we develop a latent class modeling method to examine variation in offending trajectories. This model is applied to test the predictions of the trajectory theories developed by Moffitt and Patterson that offending history data can be classified into early onset/life‐course‐persistent offending and late onset/adolescent‐limited offending trajectories, with these trajectory groups being related to different etiological factors. The approach was applied to data gathered over the course of a longitudinal study of more than 900 New Zealand children studied from birth until the age of 18. The analysis identified four trajectory groups, with these trajectory groups corresponding to nonoffenders, moderate risk offenders, adolescent onset offenders, and chronic offenders. The adolescent onset and chronic offender groups were similar to the trajectory groupings predicted by the Moffitt/Patterson theories. Examination of social, family, childhood, and peer factors associated with these offending trajectories suggested the presence of a series of common etiological factors relating to family functioning and early adjustment that discriminated between the trajectory groups. However, evidence of trajectory‐specific etiology also existed, in which the formation of deviant peer affiliations for young people from moderate risk backgrounds led to the rapid onset of offending in adolescence.