More than a dozen of states prohibit downward modification of child support during incarceration. See, e.g., In re A.M.S. ex rel. Farthing v. Stoppleworth, 694 N.W. 2d 8, 9 (N.D. 2005). This means that if a father has a $400/month child support obligation, he retains this obligation if imprisoned. A parent does not cease to be a parent when he's imprisoned, but I have two major problems with this.
One: It creates a ridiculous, illogical, horrible cycle, which is bad not only for the prisoner, but the children and society as a whole. When the prisoner is released, he is in contempt of court for not having paid child support. This means as soon as he gets a job his wages are garnished. It also means that the person can be prosecuted for having not paid child support (even though he was physically and lawfully incapable of paying it), which can result in just sending him right back to prison. Assuming he isn't arrested again immediately for not paying child support, garnishing his wages stacks the cards highly in favor of him being incarcerated again for something else.
How can we expect people to re-assimilate under these conditions? Gainful employment is probably the most effective prophylactic regarding recidivism. Not only does society make it practically impossible for a convict to have a respectable job, but apparently if he has kids (and isn't married to their mother) even if he gets a respectable job, it won't be gainful. How can we expect these people to lead lawful lives if we make it impossible for them?
Two: This discriminates against parents who are not married to their children's other parent. A married person does not have child support obligations. Thus, a married person can be incarcerated and not be faced with this problem, even though his children are equally unsupported while he's in prison.
I fully recognize that this is an unsolvable problem. Children need support no matter where their parents are, or what their parents did, but this approach only compounds the problem; it doesn't provide support for the children. Excluding the few months of garnished wages, it most likely reduces their chance of future support. If their parent gets arrested again (whether as a result of no gainful employment or arrest for not paying child support), support again becomes an impossibility. Moreover, without even giving it much thought, I can call to mind a litany of costs to society: crime victimization, cost of prosecution, cost of incarceration, state support of child, et cetera (not to mention the indirect costs, such as the children's own delinquency).
This is just one of many examples of how society's indifference to the problems of convicts is perpetually harmful to us. People commit crimes and must be held responsible, but we can't shrug off every one of the following complications with "he should of thought of that before he broke the law." These things effect everyone, not just the criminal.
On a only tangentially related - but interesting - note, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a probation condition prohibiting a man from having any more children, because he was already not supporting nine children. State v. Oakley, 629 N.W.2d 200 (Wisc. 2001). This means if the guy had any more kids before he provided support for his existing kids, he was going to prison. Draconian maybe, but in this case I think the court was right. He refused to support any of the children, despite many court orders, and he abused the children. If he were immediately put in jail, he would definitely not be able to support the children and he wouldn't be able to have any anyway. This option at least gives him the opportunity to support them. While sending him to prison wouldn't fix the problem, it might have at least forced him to take his obligations seriously, and prevented him from victimizing future children (and mothers).
I don't know if he did ever support his children, have other children, or go to prison. I do know that part of the reason he wasn't paying child support was because he was a convict and couldn't get a job (but that doesn't excuse having nine kids under those circumstances). David Ray Papke, State v. Oakely, Deadbeat Dads, and American Poverty, 26 W.New Eng. L. Rev. 9, 10-13 (2004). Then again, the cost of incarcerating him is far more than the children could need for support, but what can you do? If we paid for the kids, but didn't make the father pay any consequences, it would create motivation for parents to abandon their kids and make the state support them.
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Considering the piss-poor public policy of the past thirty years has been to make life progressively more difficult for individuals post incarceration...
You have got a point. Since I don't feel like playing video games right now, I'll offer my opinion: child insurance!
Hear me out on this: Perhaps instead of a system where an individual primary custodial brings suit against an individual deadbeat parent, we have a system where parents (married and unmarried) pay a small amount (say, $150/year) into a special fund that is used for alimony payments to primary custodial parents where the other individual is in prison or otherwise unable to make payment (due to job loss). When the prison sentence is complete or the 'deadbeat' has a job, the spouse has to pay child support --> but isn't liable for the moneys paid out during his period of inability to pay. A 'deadbeat' can only be sent to prison after a year of nonpayment.
This cures the rather idiotic public policy of post-prison punitive actions leading to recidivism. It spreads the risk of 'deadbeats' amongst society, and if marriage is something we wish to encourage then the payments into the insurance fund for a married couple would be lower than the combined payments of two single individuals.
Either way, the Reaganesque thinking behind your complaints needs to be cast along with the rest of conservatism on the ash heap of history.
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