Child support was intended to make sure parents support their children, but has become yet another way this country criminalizes poverty. Right now, tens of thousands of parents lose their driver's licenses, have their income garnished, accrue massive debt, and/or are thrown in jail because they cannot pay their child support. None of this helps them pay their child support, it only exacerbates the problem, making it harder for parents to earn money and fulfill their obligations. When parents are punished for being impoverished, no one wins. Kids don’t receive financial support, parents cannot meet their obligations, and the state spends taxpayer money punishing people with no return. To break this cycle, where nothing meaningful is accomplished, we must provide parents struggling to pay child support with support services and the tools to succeed. When we punish poverty, all we accomplish is perpetuating cycles of harm and generational trauma.
At first glance, child support and mass incarceration seem entirely unrelated. The legal processes happen in two entirely different court systems – civil and criminal – but there is more overlap than there appears. Most people who are incarcerated are parents and almost half of all people in prison have had child support orders and about a third have active child support orders. And not only are child support orders following people to prison, sometimes child support orders put people in prison. Through either civil or criminal court systems, judges can sentence people to jail or prison time for failure to pay child support.
Instead of giving parents the tools to succeed in making child support payments and provide for their children, the government punishes parents who are incarcerated or cannot afford their child support in ways that destabilize and makes it harder for them to find gainful employment. The end result? Everybody loses. Children don’t receive financial support from their parent, the parent accrues debt that could put them in prison or ruin their credit without the tools to start paying it off, and the state spends money prosecuting, punishing, and incarcerating people. Child support enforcement laws are based on the (incorrect) assumption that parents willingly refuse to pay in the majority of cases. Thus, parents struggling with poverty are punished.
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