Her trip to jail occurs as such therapy and its potential harms are increasingly coming under fire in Colorado.

The treatment is used by family courts to settle custody fights. Services like those provided by Bassett use confrontation and exercises to deprogram a child’s rejection of a parent. In extreme cases, children have been sent across state lines to reunification camps with parents they reject, and they are barred from having contact with their protective parent.

The fuck

I really recommend everyone to read the article. Shit somehow only gets worse

Not only is the asshole a rapist, he also tried to drown one of his sons because said son confronted him after catching mr "model citizen" with his hands on one of the daughters' private parts.

Those reunification therapy sessions? The mother has to pay the $370 per week alone when it's just her 2 sons attending. There was also one session:

She said she checked on her children during the session and found one of her sons curled in a fetal position on the ground in Bassett’s office, but Bassett ordered her to stop addressing what the mother termed the serious needs of her children.

She said she fears the reunification therapy is harming her boys, whom she described as crying uncontrollably, having explosive outbursts and expressing thoughts of self-harm after attending Bassett’s reunification sessions with their father.

Ms. Basset, the "reunification therapist", deserves some jail time as well

his ex-wife is in jail for objecting to court-ordered reunification therapy meant to repair his relationship with two of his sons.

Yeah, because top priority when encountering a piece of shit incestual paedophilic rapist, is to reunite him with the children he set aside while he preyed on the others. 🤯🤬

Be it a system or an individual - abusers defend abusers. It's always projection in self defence, it's why they've constructed an elaborate conspiracy theory about secret paedophile rings run by the rich and powerful, yet when someone rich and powerful (and white and straight), and those who serve them, acts in direct defence of a paedophile, they look the other way.

The judge who made this ruling, along with everyone who enabled it, need to have their hard drives searched and the children in their lives questioned and potentially removed for their safety. I don't have a single doubt in my mind that if they did this, they would find at least one more paedophile.

As for the mother and kids, I hope they sue the state or the court or whoever it is they can, and win millions to pay for the new life they're going to need to build for themselves and therapy they're going to need for the rest of their lives (never mind compensation for the obscene miscarriage of justice of locking her up).

There is absolutely no place in a modern culture for oppressive ideologies like conservatism. Conservative judges protect oppressive (abusive) fathers while oppressing (abusing) the women and children.

This has always been the way of conservatism. Always.

Off topic: what radicalised you?

If you asked me fifteen years ago if I wanted to live in the United States, I would have jumped on the first ship to Staten Island in a heartbeat.

Nowadays I don't even want to visit the country, and unjust bullshit like this is a big reason why. Y'all have a serious problem with allowing your police forces to do whatever the hell they want and argue "qualified immunity" for things that would land you significant prison time in another developed country.

I really question why there's still a lifelong waiting list to apply for a visa to work in the US, when the state of the country is actually quite bleak...

Every person in a position of authority here is an absolute monster. I can only assume that all this is religiously motivated, with a keen focus on obeying your husband and respecting your father.

This article has sooo much being said between the lines.

The mother, Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins, said the reunification therapy by Christine Bassett, a licensed marriage and family therapist, has been harmful, abusive and counterproductive

When the other party is there perpetrator of abuse and the one with power, it very often is detrimental to have some sort of mediation or therapy/counseling. Because the abusers very often are able to manipulate the story so they are the victims in need of most support/compromise/thoughtfulness/time/money/basically ANY conceivable resource in life and relationships they will exploit.

Now I admit I am more familiar with the medical side of things but this entire dynamic gives me pause because it is so psych 101.

Aurora makes a lot of national news, and usually it's because of some absolute monster. What's in the water over there.

Christopher Estoll, the lawyer representing him in the divorce and the criminal case, claimed in an Aug. 1 court filing that the mother was “not a credible witness and is highly manipulative.”

I mean, whatever, but facts are he is a rapist and "reunification therapy" in this case is an absurd torture.

Fuck all of this.

What the actual fuck America?! How can you JUSTICE SYSTEM do this to people. To children?!

Kudos to the mother. I hope her sacrifice is successful in keeping these kids out of these so called "therapy sessions".

This just hurts. A whole loving family being thrown under the bus to protect one cop. Therapist sounds like a piece of work too, there should never be unwanted physical contact during therapy. Evil.

Anybody who says they can't understand how somebody would become violent can understand instantly by reading this story.

Where is the fbi this needs an investigation

Fuck the law, just run. This is insane.

To be effective as a cop, you have to operate close to the edge.

🤮

I'm not religious, but this situation really makes me yearn for Hell's fiery maw to open up and claim the cop, the judge, and the "therapist".

May they end up spending eternity as a human centipede. Or better yet, make it a closed loop.

A year ago, the Colorado legislature put new restrictions on the use of reunification therapy. The new law barred courts from restricting the custody of a parent who is competent, protective and not abusive solely to improve a relationship with the other parent. It prohibits reunification treatment that is predicated on cutting off the relationship between a child and a protective parent the child has a bond with.

State lawmakers acted after The Denver Gazette published investigations into Colorado’s troubled family court system, which has been plagued by accusations of bias, usually from mothers who say they are punished and can have their parenting time restricted during divorces when they seek to protect their children from abusive fathers.

During one troubled two-month stretch, four children were murdered in December 2022 and January 2023 by a parent embroiled in a high-conflict court custody battle. Police classified all four deaths as murder-suicides, in which fathers killed their children and then themselves.

Sounds like, even besides her own eye-witness accounts, she has good reason to be concerned. He already tried to kill his son once, and the son is probably going to testify in the child molestation case against him. This case, and reunification therapy, seem really fucked up.