54 percent of custody cases involving documented spousal abuse were decided in favor of the alleged batterers

Fighting Over the Kids: Battered spouses take aim at a controversial custody strategy.

…according to one 2004 survey in Massachusetts by Harvard’s Jay Silverman, 54 percent of custody cases involving documented spousal abuse were decided in favor of the alleged batterers. Parental alienation was used as an argument in nearly every case.

This year the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges denounced the theory as “junk science,” and at least four states have passed legislation to curtail its use in custody cases involving allegations of domestic violence. “It’s really been a cancer in the family courts,” says Richard Ducote, an attorney in Pittsburgh who has represented abuse victims in custody cases for 22 years.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14870310/site/newsweek/  
http://harfordmedlegal.typepad.com/forensics_talk/child-sexual-abuse-parent.html