One blog post which seems to be causing a lot of controversy going to jail if you don’t pay on a debt. One of our commentors said you could definitely do time for defaulting on child support, so we thought we’d investigate a little further on this topic.
A brief Google search yielded many hits on this topic:
- A Cleveland Man will spend 2 years in prison for not paying child support.
- Apparently, a warrant can be issued for your arrest for failure to pay child support. If you are pulled over for a traffic ticket, they can haul you off to jail because of this warrant.
- If you are more than $2500 in arrears on your child support payments, you cannot get a US Passport.
- A man in Cleveland, OH had to spend 30 days in jail for not paying $56K in child support.
- Iowa has a state-run program to help parents who are not making their child support payments avoid jail time.
So what is going on here? Why are non-paying parents going to jail over child support payments? You can think of child support as a court order. Anytime you refuse a court order, you are in contempt. Failing to pay child support is criminal contempt of court, and always involves jail or a fine or both. Though all states have different regulations, most do prescribe jail time for non-payment.
What if the Non-Paying Parent Can’t Get a Job?
On February 2, 1998, the California Supreme Court published the Moss opinion (Moss vs. Superior Court. 17 Cal. 4th 396 ). Prior to January 1998, many judges and commissioners were divided as to the remedies available to them when faced with a criminal contempt for non-payment for support (P.C. 270) when someone raised the issues of inability to find work.
Prior to the Moss decision, non-payment meant automatic jail time. The Moss decision made allowances for parents who were not paying only because they were out of work and could not afford their child support payments. However, if the parent was not paying because they refused to work, jail time must be served. Remember, the Moss decision only applies to California child support payments.
So what experience do you have? Have you been unable to make child support payments or had an ex-spouse who did not make their payments? Tell us about it by leaving a comment!
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I have a coworker who is not a deadbeat, he helped raise his children and even worked out an agreement to have a percentage of his pay as the child support amount. He had a job where there were times he had a lot of overtime and thought it was only fair that during those times his kids get more from him.
On the otherhand I know of another father that only wants to provide what he thinks is reasonable, wants the mother to provide a list of what she needs and he will take care of getting that to her. This mother tried that at first but then he started crossing things off the list, buying them late or not buying anything at all. If the kids ran out of diapers too soon, he blamed the mom because he thought she was changing them too often.
This mother works 20-30 hours a week because daycare is more expensive than what she would earn and works when her family can help with child care. The father wants the right to see the kids whenever he wants but doesn’t think he should help support them because she lives a comfortable life without his help.
When she took him to court for child support he accused her of being money hungry. By the way, this father has kids from four different women. According to him, they all got pregnant for his money.
There is always going to be good and bad fathers.
I am a single dad who lost his business because of the recession. My ex (who didn’t have the children an dis wealthy)sued me for her back-support, not child support. The court found me guilty and is now threatening to put me in jail if I don’t come up with 300k+ by June 1st. Since there’s no way I can come up with that amount money by then, I expect to be put in jail. This make sno sense to me at all, bu that is the situation I face. My children, who are now young adults, are besides themselves over this and it has destroyed our holidays. This is apparently America 2011.
I am being sent to jail to serve 30 days because i cant come up with 2800 dollars but I have been current all year and judge said he wouldnt give me jail time if I stayed current and stayed empolyed will that was a lie and now I may lose my job this sucks and is wrong they wouldnt even give me a lawyer