Kenya N. Rahmaan Kenya N. Rahmaan
Many people in the United States support incarcerating parents when they become delinquent on child support payments. Of these many, some refuse to acknowledge that locking people away simply because they cannot afford a child support debt was outlawed centuries ago. Almost every state and federal government has implemented child support laws and guidelines explicitly stating that a person must willfully fail to pay support. Unfortunately, states purposely ignore these laws when they apply to the arrest of child support debtors in the United States.
To begin, the federal government lists its criteria justifying arrests based on child support issues on several government web pages. According to the Office of the Attorney General (1997), the Child Support Recovery Act of 1992, Pub. L.No. 102-521, makes the willful failure to pay past-due support obligation with respect to a child residing in another state a federal offense. Additional elements make nonpayment of child support a crime, such as a parent being aware of the past due amount or owing a balance of greater than $5,000. Still, states should not consider any of the criteria if the defendant has not broken the vital element of the law.
Unfortunately, for too many parents, federal law enforcement ignores the guidelines enacted by our government officials when executing arrest warrants on alleged ‘deadbeat’ parents. Disregarding guidelines are clear when scrutinizing the arrest record of William Anthony Robson, a/k/a Rick Albrecht. The police arrested Mr. Robson in 2011 in Trumbull County, CT. Aaron Leo of ThePatch.com (2011) reported that Robson made no voluntary child support payments. The Federal government lists other criteria that prosecutors must prove were Child Support Recovery Act violations before a parent can be arrested and convicted of breaking the law. However, these violations do not include failure to make voluntary child support payments.
According to the Office of the Attorney General (1997), the U.S. government must prove that the defendant:
OR is an amount greater than $5, 000
In the Robson case, the family had previously resided in New York but moved to another state. According to the article in The Patch, the mother made the choice to move. The state could not have faulted the different residencies to the father when it applies to the enforcement of a child support order. His ex-wife moved to Connecticut with the couple’s four minor children (Leo, 2011). Tom Carson of the U.S. District Court in Hartford made another statement contradicting federal law.
Mr. Carson said minimal payments have been made through wage garnishments and seized state income tax refunds (Leo, 2011). Although the county accused Robson of failing to pay child support voluntarily, he had submitted some child support to clarify the statement. Regarding the federal statute, Robson does not appear to have broken any law. However, he was held with no bond after his initial court appearance. If convicted, Robson faced a maximum jail term of two years and a maximum fine of $250,000 (Leo, 2011).
Barriers such as unemployment, homelessness, and disabilities can prevent a person from paying any debt, including child support debt. These hindrances do not mean that a person has willfully failed to pay but merely that they could not afford to pay. The people tasked with accusing parents of failing to pay bear responsibility to differentiate between willfully failing and inability to pay. A parent’s willingness to dodge paying support must be proven before any person is jailed and held without bail.
The federal government has set the stage for the states to violate laws when pursuing indebted parents. Pennsylvania is one of these states that blatantly break the law with no repercussions. The state with the motto of virtue, liberty, and independence is a state that is immodest about executing child support ‘sweeps’ and arresting delinquent parents while breaking the law. This state is specific on its incarceration policies in conjunction with failure to pay child support.
Pennsylvania Code (2007) states that an obligor (noncustodial parent) in civil contempt cannot be incarcerated without the present ability to fulfill the conditions the court imposes for release. In other words, the noncustodial parent must be able to pay the court-imposed support amount yet refuse to spend the money owed. Being able to afford to pay the child support bill but being financially unable to do so does not constitute breaking the law. Child support officials often ignore this significant statute when pursuing these indebted Pennsylvanians.
As recently as May of 2015, Philly.com reported the arrest of nine people during a sweep conducted during the early hours in Montgomery County. The defendants were accused of skipping out on a total of $66,382 in child support for nine kids (Alex Wigglesworth, 2015). There is no mention of the financial standing of the arrested citizens. The article does not include employment status, living situations, or physical/mental disability conditions, which could hinder a person from obtaining and sustaining long-term employment to help pay the child support payment.
As the law states, the person arrested must be able to comply with the court’s demands to be found in contempt of court. The child support system operates on a guilty until proven-innocent institution. In these cases, a person’s innocence is measured by how much money they can scrape together to purchase their freedom. There is no consideration of the laws in Pennsylvania, or any other state, operating these modern-day debtors’ prisons across the United States. Regarding child support enforcement, this state remarkably fails to live up to its motto.
The state of New Jersey is no better in how it treats its low-income parents indebted to the state for child support. This state is notorious for conducting child support sweeps. Per federal law and the law in most other states, a parent must purposefully fail to pay support to face punishment. The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that arrested citizens must be advised of their right to an attorney during the court proceedings.
The Legal Services of New Jersey Law (LSNJLAW) explains, in detail, the process by which a parent may be arrested and the duties of the hearing officers when pursuing the arrest and prosecution of a litigant. According to LSNJLAW (2013), if the hearing officer finds that the noncustodial parent can pay and willfully refuses to do so, the hearing officer will make a recommendation to the court. The proposals include placing the case in a bench warrant status or for the hearing officer to issue an actual bench warrant. The critical criteria are that the person must willfully fail to follow the child support order.
The recent arrests of 25 people during a July 2015 child support sweep are questionable, if not downright illegal. Of the $440,712.91 allegedly owed child support debt, the jailed parents only paid a total of $11,040 to buy their freedom. Only one person paid the total amount of child support due, while six people arrested could not pay a single dollar towards their child support debt. The local sheriff bragged about the strong sting, stating that the roundup was a great success as far as the statistics show (Carly Kilroy, 2015).
Statistically, these arrests failed since approximately .02% of the child support debt was collected. The failures continue when considering that most people arrested paid the bare minimum to escape imprisonment. One arrestee paid a whopping $50 out of the total owed child support debt of $22,106. The low payment amount is further proof that New Jersey is violating the law of the land by incarcerating people who do not have the means to pay excessive amounts of child support debt.
Jeffersonville, Indiana, is one of the most recent cities that have executed arrest warrants on parents who have fallen behind on child support payments. Lauren Adams of WKLY.com reported that the Clark County Sheriff’s Department said 32 parents owing $339,348.76 had been arrested. Nothing in the article mentions that the parent’s rights had been honored before, during, or after the raid. Clearly, the range of debt owed varied from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars; however, there is no mention of any of the parents purposefully ignoring the child support order.
According to the Office of the Clark County Prosecuting Attorney, the Child Support Division must file a Verified Information form for a hearing on a Rule to Show Cause when a person is delinquent in child support payments. This verification is necessary because it assists in proving that a person has the means to pay support but willfully fails to pay the amount due. Once the obligor or defendant has received notification, they are supposed to be granted their day in court to show why the child support has not been paid. The person overseeing the hearing must establish that the defendant was aware of the support order at the hearing.
Unfortunately, there is no proof that the child support agency notified any people arrested. By his own account, School Resource Officer Kevin Fisher stated that the only things given on the warrants are a date of birth and an address (Adams, 2015). One could argue that the address provided means the agency had already mailed a notification to the obligor. However, Fisher states that those addresses on the warrants are usually unreliable (Adams, 2015). So, there is no proof of mailed notification, much less received by the arrestees.
Nevertheless, the parents were hauled into jail over the owing of debt. Once at the hearing, it must be established that the person had the ability to pay and willfully failed to pay (Clark County Prosecuting Attorney). This clause seems to have been ignored before, as well as after, the arrests. Ignoring the statute is evident based on the statement offered by one of the detectives interviewed by Stephen Johnson of WDRB.com. Detective Maples said no money had been collected (Johnson, 2015).
Statistically, most parents who owe child support debt are unemployed or underemployed. Those barriers do not establish willfulness in failing to pay support, but the court system must prove this accusation. Once parents are jailed, the courts will pass down judgment and or set up a payment plan (Johnson, 2015). Again, the act of setting up a payment plan for people to buy their freedom is essentially jailing people who cannot afford to pay a government-owed debt. The operation of debtors’ prisons has been outlawed since the 1800s but has mysteriously resurfaced in the American child support system with almost no objections. https://youtu.be/CXbN635y2Is
We, as U.S. citizens, must demand that those entrusted with the authority enforcing the child support guidelines and regulations follow the law of the land. These requirements should apply from the top of the judicial echelon, federal and state lawmakers, to child support workers and arresting officers. It is more than apparent that the majority of the people arrested during these child support roundups have not broken any laws. The proof is evident when observing the dismal collection amounts that agencies report after the arrests.
If people had the means to pay for support, they would surely swap the hundreds of thousands of dollars owed in exchange for freedom. Since this does not seem relevant in these cases, these people should be released immediately. The child support system must be accountable when enforcing the laws. Too many lives are at stake to accept anything less than absolute constitutionality and legality from our governments.
References:
Adams, L. (2015, July 29). School resource officers track down deadbeat parents | Local News – KCCI Home. Retrieved from http://www.kcci.com/news/school-resource-officers-track-down-deadbeat-parents/34419182
Johnson, S. (2015, January 28). Clark Co. sheriff’s deputies use unusual manpower to find ‘deadb – WDRB 41 louisville news. Retrieved from http://www.wdrb.com/story/29653299/clark-co-sheriffs-deputies-use-unusual-manpower-to-find-deadbeat-parents
Kilroy, C. (2015, July 29). Somerset county: Non-Support warrant sweep results in 25 Arrests | Basking ridge, nj patch. Retrieved from http://patch.com/new-jersey/baskingridge/somerset-county-non-support-warrant-sweep-results-25-arrests
Legal Services of New Jersey. (2006, June). LSNJLAW – New Jersey Supreme Court Issues Ruling About Right to a Lawyer in Child Support Enforcement Hearings. Retrieved from http://www.lsnjlaw.org/Family-Relationships/Child-Support/General-Information/Pages/NJSupreme-Court-Ruling.aspx
Leo, A. (2011, January 25). Trumbull man allegedly owes $175,000 in child support | Patch. Retrieved from http://patch.com/connecticut/trumbull/trumbull-man-allegedly-owes-175000-in-child-support
Prosecutive guidelines and procedures for the child support recovery act of 1992 | AG | Department of Justice. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/ag/prosecutive-guidelines-and-procedures-child-support-recovery-act-1992
The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney. (n.d.). Child support: How is the support order enforced? Retrieved from
The Pennsylvania Code. (2007). 231 Pa. Code Rule 1910.25-7. Indirect criminal contempt. Incarceration. Retrieved from http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/231/chapter1910/s1910.25-7.html
Wigglesworth, A. (2015, May 6). Nine arrested in montco child-support sweep; more sought. Retrieved from http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Nine_arrested_Montco_child_support_sweep.html
