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| No | 39% | 112 votes | Total: 284 votes | |
| Yes | 61% | 172 votes |
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Add to FavoritesThe debate title is; Should "Deadbeat Dads" Face Jail Time?
First I must mention"Deadbeat" does not always mean DadI work in social services and have known many cases where it's the Mom's who have walked away. Please keep in mind that this is my opinion and only as I have witnessed the different scenarios.
I have lived on both sides of the Child Support saga. I was a divorced mom and had a deadbeat ex. I was also involved with someone who was constantly being taken back to court for more money.
I feel the entire child support system is completely unfair. I know of those that take the money and spend it on themselves. They use it to go buy themselves high dollar clothes, get their hair and nails done, drive fancy cars and in the meantime the children are wearing hand me down clothes.
I do not feel that jail time should be an option for dead beat parents. I feel that taking their income tax returns, garnishing wages, or taking their drivers licenses until paid in full is sufficient in getting payment. I do feel that the percentage of payments should be re-evaluated and the things the non custodial parent purchases for the children should be taken into consideration. Also, there are those parents that have the children every other weekend and maybe two weeks out of the summerAll the while, child support is still being collected even though the children are not even there. What is wrong with this system?
Many non-custodial parents buy all the clothes because the custodial parent doesn't buy them. They take care of the hair appointments, prom outfits, and all the extras that the children want and/or need. This leads to the big question, "What is the child support being spent on"? Many will say that it's to keep a roof over the children's heads, food on the table, etc. However, those things would be needed whether the children are there or not.
Being a single Mom of two boys I can honestly say the electric, heat, phone, cable, rent/mortgage is going to be there whether the children are there or not. My children are grown and out of the house now, and my utilities have not gone down by any drastic measure. The only thing that I can agree with is groceries. Having two growing boys in the house definitely caused for a higher grocery bill. But come on groceries in a month are not going to run over the entire amount of child support that many receive per week.
Some may say, well, there are other expenses such as braces, babysitters/daycare, medication, glasses. Well, again, I have to sayyes there are those things however Domestic Relations can make the non custodial parent pay for part of those things. So, why the high weekly child support payments? I think it's all out of spite and greed.
I think that they should use receipts and also complete a cost evaluation for the child. I do not think that wages should even play a part. So, many clients that I deal with on a daily basis has children by several different men and drive better cars then the caseworkers do and continue to have children and freely admit that if they keep having children they'll never have to work. They can continue to live off the system and child support.
Now is that fair? These men are being trapped by fatherhood. Some women have even lied and said that someone else was the father just to get more child support. They do not think of the consequences when the truth eventually comes out which it will. The said fathers and children get hurt, hearts are broken and trust is lost. By then it's too late as the love and money has already been paid. The child support system needs to wake up and get with the times and realize that the system is being completely taken for granted and many innocent people are being victimized. The children should come first and with that being said, each situation and circumstances should be thoroughly checked into before setting an amount for child support.
Learn more about this author, Terri Quick.
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Yes
Parents, who are required to pay child support, whether they are the father or the mother, should face the possibility of confinement if they refuse to meet their obligations without good reason. Thus, the answer to this question is "yes", but should include "deadbeat moms" as well as "deadbeat dads".
Child support is a legal obligation established by law and ordered, after careful consideration of numerous factors, by courts. Those considerations include both the requirements of the child as well as the resources of the parent who is facing a potential child support order.
Once support is ordered, the parent faced with a support obligation has the ability to challenge both the obligation itself and the amount imposed. In addition, there are mechanisms for the child support obligation to be modified at a later date under certain circumstances when the parent is unable to pay. Thus, a parent who feels they have been treated unfairly by a court and/or who experiences a significant change in circumstances (such as the loss of employment), can seek to have the support obligation changed.
Thus, while there are certainly a few instances of improper or unfair support orders, the far majority of those who reach "deadbeat" status obtain that label not because they shouldn't have been required to pay, but because they refuse to.
American courts have always had the power to compel compliance with their orders. Child support obligations are no different. To be meaningful, a court's order must have a drastic penalty as a last resort. Institutional confinement, while drastic, is the most powerful tool in a court's toolbox.
Having been a court appointed attorney charged with representing parents who were facing child support contempt charges, I have experienced the process first hand. In my experience, innocent parents were not being thrown in the slammer for missing a payment or two as some opponents suggest. In fact, I have never had a client incarcerated for child support contempt and can recall no such case during my time as a court-appointed attorney.
In my experience, parents fail to pay child support for three main reasons: 1) they don't know or understand that they have the obligation, 2) the have difficulty paying, procrastinate, fall too far behind to catch up, become discouraged, and give up or 3) they are opposed to the obligation in principal and refuse to obey it.
In the cases of #1 and #2, the system is set up to give parents opportunities to come into compliance. The "meter "keeps running and the parent may have to continue making payments longer than original ordered, but the parent will stay out of trouble as long as they pay something and are making a good faith effort to comply. The same is true for reason #3. Often the parents that refuse to pay do so based on a misguided principal, such as a visceral reaction to giving the other parent money. These recalcitrant parents need to understand that, in the eyes of the law, the support is considered the child's money, not the parents'.
Courts are well aware that confinement is a drastic measure and should only be used in extremely rare cases where the parent shows blatant disregard for the obligation and the court after efforts and opportunities to change that point of view. Obviously, a jailed parent has had their earning potential jeopardized, is unavailable to the child, and is taking up a space in an already crowded institution. Judges are aware of these factors and sentence a "deadbeat" to serve time in light of them only when they have no other alternative.
"Deadbeats" gain that moniker because they have failed or refused to abide by a valid court order. As with any court order, a judge must have the power to compel adherence, including the power to confine as a last resort. Without such power, child support orders would lack sufficient teeth and our legal system and, most importantly, single parents and their children would be greatly disadvantaged.
Learn more about this author, Joseph Hazelbaker.
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