Thursday, April 22, 2010
JAILING INDIGENTS FOR NON-SUPPORT IN SOUTH CAROLINA MAY NOT BE COERCING PAYMENTS
In "S.C. High Court Upholds Jail for Indigent Parents," Rick Brundrett wrote, “If imprisoning indigent parents improves collection rates, it’s hard to tell that by looking at the overall numbers.”
The recently released Child Support Enforcement FY ‘07 Annual Report to Congress casts further doubt on whether jailing indigent parents for non-payment of child support is an effective strategy for reducing child support arrearages in South Carolina--note the South Carolina data on Table 71: Total Amount of Arrearages Due for All Fiscal Years for Five Consecutive Fiscal Years.
Simply stated, if jailing those who cannot pay could induce them to pay, we should be seeing a steady decrease in the total child support arrearages. However, not only are we seeing a fairly steady increase in the total arrearages, but it should also be kept in mind that, although Table 71 is the most recently released federal document, it contains non-current pre-recession data. Therefore, when the post-recession data is available, we suspect that the arrearages will be shown to have increased dramatically.
In "S.C. High Court Upholds Jail for Indigent Parents," Rick Brundrett wrote, “If imprisoning indigent parents improves collection rates, it’s hard to tell that by looking at the overall numbers.”
The recently released Child Support Enforcement FY ‘07 Annual Report to Congress casts further doubt on whether jailing indigent parents for non-payment of child support is an effective strategy for reducing child support arrearages in South Carolina--note the South Carolina data on Table 71: Total Amount of Arrearages Due for All Fiscal Years for Five Consecutive Fiscal Years.
Simply stated, if jailing those who cannot pay could induce them to pay, we should be seeing a steady decrease in the total child support arrearages. However, not only are we seeing a fairly steady increase in the total arrearages, but it should also be kept in mind that, although Table 71 is the most recently released federal document, it contains non-current pre-recession data. Therefore, when the post-recession data is available, we suspect that the arrearages will be shown to have increased dramatically.
Labels: "Deadbeat Dads", Child Support Collection, Civil Contempt
Comments:
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I paid my child support the other day and the clerk made a comment that "its not getting any better." Implying more people are having problems making their support payments. Some many of these payees are tied to the housing market. Until that comes back the Court will have it's club to use, right or wrong.
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