This article was written by Amy Polacko and Dr. Christine M. Cocchiola and originally appeared in Ms. magazine: https://msmagazine.com/2024/09/20/colorado-mom-jail-kids-rachel-pickrel-hawkins
Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins, a 48-year-old mother of six living in a domestic violence shelter, said the “therapy” designed to force children to reconcile with abusive father traumatized her children.
Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins outside the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office in a photo posted on GoFundMe. (Erin Siegel / GoFundMe)
Some people were shocked to hear a Colorado mom spent two weekends in jail this month—simply because she was trying to protect her children from contact with an accused rapist and child abuser.
But it didn’t surprise us.
As a divorce coach and coercive control expert, who are both domestic abuse survivors, we see these mind-boggling, trauma-inducing decisions by family courts every day. This Colorado mom could be any mom. That’s why it’s time that America deals with our family court crisis head on.
Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins was jailed for objecting to court-ordered “reunification therapy” that sought to mend the relationship between her children and their father, a man facing charges for sexually assaulting three of their daughters and physically abusing their son.
Pickrel-Hawkins is a 48-year-old mother of six living in a domestic violence shelter, who said the “therapy” designed to force children to reconcile with their alleged abuser traumatized their boys, ages 10 and 13. After public outrage, media coverage and a flood of “court watchers” attending her hearing to show support late last week, Larimer County District Court Judge Daniel McDonald ruled that Pickrel-Hawkins will not face more jail time and reunification therapy visits will be halted for now.
But this should never have happened.
Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins on the last night she spent with her sons before reporting to the Larimer County jail for weekend incarceration in August. (Courtesy)
Where is the accused, former police sergeant Michael Hawkins? Oh, he’s free. Hawkins, 55, denied the charges and is wearing an ankle monitor while out on bond.
“This has to stop. This is insanity,” Pickrel-Hawkins said during a social media live after her first weekend in jail. “We have to pull together. We have to save these children.”
Protective parents from across the country have rallied behind Pickrel-Hawkins—on social media and in person at a rally on the steps of the Colorado Supreme Court building last week.
Family court is a place that defies logic and has been called, even by attorneys, “an abuser’s playground,” an “upside down world” and “The Twilight Zone.” Abusers routinely weaponize our legal system to exact revenge on their spouse. Court professionals often accuse women of fabricating abuse. Protective parents spend every last dime on legal and court-ordered expert fees—even forsaking their homes—and can still lose custody.
Who pays the ultimate price? Our children.
“Rachel is just one of many mothers across the U.S. who have undergone this punishing, traumatizing experience, due to family courts’ routine mishandling and minimizing of abuse claims and evidence,” Danielle Pollack, policy manager for the National Family Violence Law Center, told us.
“We have to pull together. We have to save these children.” – Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins
Stories of mothers who have been murdered, or have taken their own lives, in the middle of family court cases circulate on social media regularly—and are chronicled by WeSpoke, a group focusing on sex discrimination against women and their safety. Last year, in a much publicized case, one of WeSpoke’s founders New York attorney Catherine Kassenoff chose an assisted suicide in Switzerland after losing custody of her daughters.
Men can also suffer family court injustice, but research shows that the system is especially discriminatory toward women. In George Washington University Law professor Joan Meier’s 2019 study “U.S. child custody outcomes in cases involving parental alienation and abuse allegations: what do the data show?” she found that less than half of women’s abuse claims are credited. Child sexual abuse was rarely accepted by the courts, at 15 percent, and mothers reporting a father’s abuse (of various kinds) lost custody in 26 percent of cases. Much is done in the “best interest of the children,” which presupposes that parents should share custody no matter what.
Even when a history of violence is acknowledged by the court system, children are not protected from an abusive parent. This is Pickrel-Hawkins’ story and the story of many protective parents. Add to that the fact that some abuse is not as obvious.
There are now seven states that have codified coercive control as a form of domestic abuse. This leaves 43 states dismissing the experiences of victims who do not present with a bruise. We must look beyond the violent incident model and see coercive control as the foundation of all domestic abuse. Abusers may use physical violence—however they also use psychological tactics such as gaslighting, manipulation, intimidation, isolation and sexual violence, plus legal and financial abuse. The most heartbreaking is when the abuser weaponizes the children.
We’re on a mission to educate—and hopefully anger the masses—in the hope that moms (and dads) across our country join the movement demanding family court reform.
Kathy Sherlock—whose 7-year-old daughter, Kayden, was killed by her ex-partner, and the namesake of the provisions of the Kayden’s Law in Pennsylvania, which were added to the reauthorized Violence Against Women Act—gets a hug from President Joe Biden during an event celebrating the reauthorization of VAWA at the White House on March 16, 2022. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
The Violence Against Women Act with Kayden’s Law, passed federally in 2022 in honor of Kayden Mancuso, a Pennsylvania girl who was killed by her father during an unsupervised visit. Ironically, Colorado was the first to pass a version on the state level, which includes considering evidence of past abuse, including child abuse, and limits to reunification therapies.
We can all work to help get a version of this law enacted in our state. We can also push for domestic abuse education for judges and other family court actors so they’re aware of the tactics that abusers use to wield control. Lastly, we can open up these secret courtrooms to more oversight and public scrutiny.
Twenty-two brave women from around the world contributed their stories to our book FRAMED: Women in the Family Court Underworld, which dedicated to protective parents like Pickrel-Hawkins. They are cautionary tales, that we never received, about what to expect in family court. American society is quick to label divorces “messy” or “he said-she said” dramas. We urge you to think of them as situations involving real people, where there could be an abuser and a victim.
We need to acknowledge abuse within the family system, physical and non-physical, and see coercive control as the underpinning of it all. Domestic abuse and child abuse are not siloed issues. Whether physical violence occurs or psychological tactics of oppression, everyone within the family system suffers.
It’s time that the very institutions that are intended to protect victims are held to account and acknowledge the intergenerational trauma that is preventable.
After all, the Colorado mom could be your daughter, your sister, your friend. The Colorado mom could be you.
