BOISE — After months of discussion led by the Child Custody and Domestic Relations Task Force, Idaho legislators are poised to present recommendations for targeted reforms for the child custody system in advance of the legislative session.

The task force met Monday to provide a summation of the key issues where the state’s family court is system is failing to meet “constitutional, statutory and ethical” standards in an effort to build a final court reform report, or white paper, to guide legislation in the coming legislative session.

One of the central targeted reforms pertains to temporary child custody orders. These court orders establish parameters for custody and visitation and are typically issued while legal cases are still pending.

The task force expressed concern with the variable length these orders can remain in effect. Since they can last from a month to multiple years at a time without any evidentiary hearing, parents can functionally lose custody of a child without an explicit court ruling, committee documents said.

Citing his professional background in mental health services, Rep. Marco Erickson, R-Idaho Falls, said that in some cases, children are being “traumatized” by the system more than if they would have been left in their family under poor circumstances. When temporary orders are repeatedly moving children from one circumstance to another, their education, along with other parts of their lives, can be easily disrupted.

“There’s chaos in that kid’s life and they need consistency and they need very strong routine,” Erickson said, “and that’s not happening in these temporary orders.”

Legislators suggested changes could also be made in the realm of enforcing these court orders when issued. Under present circumstances, committee documents said, there is a concern that both law enforcement and the judicial system “inconsistently applies” state code on child custody interference, “leaving parents without effective remedies when court orders are violated.”

One challenge lies in police often refusing to intervene in custody disputes and instead label them as “civil” matters, while prosecutors also “rarely pursue criminal interference charges even in the case of repeated violations,” committee documents said.

Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, said that a failure to enforce court orders amounted to a denial of equal protection. When law enforcement fails to effectively enforce code, she said, it leaves parents with few options to remedy their respective situations. To address this, she questioned whether the Legislature needed to clarify whether law enforcement has the authority to enforce family orders.

Such a responsibility could be challenging as law enforcement would need to be informed on a specific case in order to determine whether a court order provided to them as in effect or has been superseded by a newer order, Sen. James Ruchti, D-Pocatello, said. He posited that a database of effective court orders could be made available to officers to alleviate this concern.

Expressing similar reservations about such an arrangement, Sen. Carl Bjerke, R-Coeur d’Alene, said this responsibility would amount to inserting officers into one of the most “contentious arenas” that law enforcement agencies don’t have the bandwidth to handle.

The issue of domestic violence, and a subset of domestic violence known as coercive control, were also targets for the task force’s legislators. Committee documents said the state having a “narrow” definition of domestic violence that excludes coercive control ultimately left survivors and children at risk.

According to Idaho statute, domestic violence is understood to mean “physical injury, sexual abuse or forced imprisonment.” This definition, in excluding mention of psychological and economic abuse (part of coercive control methods used by abusers), could mean Idaho law lacks safeguards that would protect abuse victims against these actions. To address this, the task force will be examining whether the state’s domestic abuse definition should be expanded in the coming session.

As for wider concerns surrounding domestic violence, legislators also questioned whether domestic violence cases should be exempt from mandatory mediation to avoid manipulation by an abusive partner.

Sen. Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton, speaking to concerns voiced in prior task force meetings, questioned whether judges and mediators may need particular trauma-informed training to better identify abusive and manipulative dynamics behind child custody cases.

The task force also broached how the legal costs of family court could be better equalized to ensure one parent doesn’t have outsized advantage over another. These circumstances can result in parents losing their custody cases on “procedural grounds, not merit,” committee documents said.

“The court system works best when there is equal access to … competent legal counsel and both sides are able to procure the evidence and legal expertise that they need,” Rep. John Gannon, D-Boise, said, adding that there should be an “early determination” as to whether the party with financial resources should have to pay for the party without.

Gannon said this type of protection could help prevent “bullying” through the legal system and provide an incentive for the party with financial resources to “minimize litigation” and, in turn, encourage a more timely and cost-effective resolution.

Committee documents pointed to whether existing code pertaining to divorce in the state could be implemented in family courts. Under this statute, a court can consider the financial resources of both parties in a divorce and order one party to pay for the costs of attorney fees and other legal service of the other party.

One more meeting for the task force, the date for which is still pending, will be scheduled for the committee before the legislative session begins in January. As work on these reforms continues, the task force is expected to submit a final report and a presentation of final findings to the Idaho Legislature, committee documents said.