About the Report The Report, Part II: Review of the Re-Entry Process:

chapters and policy statements:
About the Report of the Re-Entry Council

Policy Statement 13, Recommendation C

Increase collaboration between departments of corrections and child-support agencies to promote information about and access to the child-support process by incarcerated parents and their families.

As many as a quarter of state prison inmates (and half of incarcerated parents) have open child-support cases. [1]   Roughly half of the parents with an open case have an existing support order, while the other half are waiting for paternity or a support order to be established. [2]   By helping parents to understand and manage their child-support responsibilities while they are in prison, corrections administrators may improve the chances of successful reintegration after release.

Program Example: Long Distance Dads, National Fatherhood Initiative

Long Distance Dads is a program developed by the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) to assist incarcerated men become more involved and supportive parents. State corrections staff and community agencies are trained by NFI staff to deliver the 12-week curriculum in correctional facilities. Coverage of child-support issues may include question-and-answer sessions, distribution of pamphlets from local and state child-support agencies, and presentations from local child-support agencies. The Long Distance Dads curriculum is currently being used in Washington, California, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and other states.

Parents who can manage their child-support obligations may be less likely to enter the underground economy or to refuse to take a job where their wages would be reported and subject to garnishment. Further, parents may be less likely to be put off by mounting arrearages and related tensions between family members when they are contributing to their children's support, even when the payments are modest.

When parents enter prison with a child-support order, they remain responsible for payments even though they usually cannot meet their responsibilities. Incarcerated parents with established support orders should be encouraged to initiate the review and adjustment process as soon as possible to modify their support orders to reflect their current circumstances. In addition, legal procedures may be available to re-open and correct support orders within a set time when the orders have been based on mistakes of facts or law, such as incorrect income. Inmates should learn how to avail themselves of these processes, depending on what options are available in a given state.

States, in turn, should simplify and speed up their standard review and adjustment process, and make this process readily available to parents. [3]   Oregon, for example, has established a rebuttable presumption that an incarcerated parent with income of less than $200 per month is unable to pay any support, and the state will modify an order to zero if requested. Moreover, the state provides inmates with modification forms and pre-paid envelopes, and consults with inmates on child-support payment plans. [4]  

State Policy on Child-Support and Incarceration

Currently, most states do not have procedures in place to suspend or reduce child-support obligations during incarceration. In almost half the states, incarceration is treated as "voluntary unemployment," which does not provide a legal basis for modifying an existing obligation. [5]   In states that recognize incarceration as a basis for modification, one of the parents must affirmatively request the court or child-support agency to review and adjust the support order. [6]   If a review determines that the order does not accurately reflect the parent's current ability to pay, the order is supposed to be adjusted according to rebuttable state child-support guidelines. However, in most states, the existing process is time-consuming and its outcome is often unpredictable. [7]   In addition, most states do not systematically identify and track inmates with support orders. [8]  

In states that do not authorize suspension of support obligations during incarceration, state legislatures should revise their state laws to recognize incarceration as a basis for modification. In addition, state legislatures could consider enacting procedures to automatically suspend support obligations during incarceration. In North Carolina, for instance, a state statute directs the child-support agency to automatically suspend child-support obligations for inmates with no income or assets. The child-support agency conducts a data match with corrections records to identify eligible inmates, and suspends the support obligation during incarceration without the need for the parent to request a review.

[9]  

Not every parent with an open child-support case enters prison with an established child-support order. Sometimes, paternity and support orders are established while the parent is in prison. However, typically, parents have no opportunity to participate in paternity or child-support proceedings while they are incarcerated. When parents do not participate, the risk of erroneous orders increases, and the likelihood of compliance after release decreases. Default paternity orders may incorrectly find that an inmate is the father of a child, while default support orders may be based on nonexistent income. [10]  

Corrections administrators should partner with child-support agencies to improve the knowledge of inmates about their child-support responsibilities and help them access child-support processes. Such collaborations would be strengthened by incorporating liaison staff into each agency, implementing cross-system data matching, integrating child-support into parenting and other prison programming, and coordinating funding and services (See Recommendation a, above, for a discussion of prison parenting programs.)

Corrections administrators and child-support agencies should work together to increase the participation of incarcerated parents at every stage of child-support proceedings. Parents who are incarcerated should be notified of all pending paternity and support order proceedings, and they should be allowed to participate as fully as possible through telephone hearings and an opportunities for written submissions. Paternity proceedings, which establish the legal relationship between an unmarried father and child, should provide genetic tests free of charge. Support establishment proceedings should result in realistic orders based on the parent's actual ability to pay. They should minimize the use of default orders which impute income from assumed full-time, year-round jobs; limit the imposition of interest and other charges; and coordinate orders for multiple families. [11]  

  1. Esther Griswold and Jessica Pearson, "Twelve Reasons for Collaboration between Departments of Correction and Child-Support Enforcement Agencies," Corrections Today 65, no. 3 (2003): 87. back
  2. Esther Griswold, Jessica Pearson, and Lanae Davis, Testing a Modification Process for Incarcerated Parents (Denver, CO: Center for Policy Research, 2001); Nancy Thoennes, "Child-Support Profile: Massachusetts Incarcerated and Paroled Parents," in Fathers in the Criminal Justice System: A Collaboration Between Child-Support Enforcement and Criminal Justice Agencies in Massachusetts (Denver, CO: Center for Policy Research, 2002). While these studies do include noncustodial mothers as well as fathers, mothers make up a small percentage (three percent) of the study population. This percentage may under-represent noncustodial incarcerated mothers because they typically have been involved with the child welfare system, rather than the TANF system, which automatically refers its participants to the child-support program. back
  3. 42 U.S.C. ยง 666(a)(10). back
  4. Ore. Administrative Rule 461-200-3300; Griswold and Pearson, "Twelve Reasons," 88. back
  5. Jessica Pearson, "Building Debt While Doing Time: Child-Support and Incarceration," Judges' Journal 43, no. 6 (2004). back
  6. Under H.R. 4, pending federal legislation to reauthorize the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), states would be required to review and adjust the support orders of families receiving welfare benefits, even if neither parent requests an update. back
  7. Jessica Pearson, "Building Debt While Doing Time: Child-Support and Incarceration," Judges' Journal 43, no. 1 (2004). back
  8. Federal law requires state child-support agencies to have the authority to access information maintained by state and local corrections agencies. 42 U.S.C. 666(D)(i)(VIII). back
  9. NC Gen. Stat. 50-13.10(d)(4). See Chapter 376 of Virginia Acts of Assembly 2000 (exempts inmates with no chance of parole from minimum order). back
  10. Karen Gardiner, John Tapogna, and Michael Fishman, Administrative and Judicial Processes for Establishing Child-Support Orders (Falls Church, VA: The Lewin Group, 2002); Amy Hirsch et al., Every Door Closed: Barriers Facing Parents with Criminal Records, An Action Agenda (Center for Law and Social Policy and Community Legal Services, Inc., 2003), Fact Sheet no. 6. back
  11. Often, default orders are based on imputed (assumed) income using state median or minimum wages. Other charges sometimes added to orders include court costs, penalties, retroactive support owed back to the child's birth, Medicaid birthing costs, and genetic test costs. Amy Hirsch et al., Every Door Closed: Barriers Facing Parents with Criminal Records, An Action Agenda (Center for Law and Social Policy and Community Legal Services, Inc., 2003), Fact Sheet no. 6.; Elaine Sorensen et al., Examining Child-Support Arrears in California: The Collectibility Study (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2003), ES 19-23; Jo Peters, Washington Collectibility of Arrearages, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, Division of Child-Support (2002), ES 8-10; Karen Gardiner, John Tapogna, and Michael Fishman, Administrative and Judicial Processes for Establishing Child-Support Orders (Falls Church, VA: The Lewin Group, 2002); Paula Roberts, An Ounce of Prevention and a Pound of Cure: Developing State Policy on the Payment of Child-Support Arrears by Low Income Parents (Washington, DC: Center for Law and Social Policy, 2001), 2-4, 8-13.; US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, The Establishment of Child-Support Orders for Low Income Non-custodial Parents (Washington, DC: 2001), OEI-05-99-00390; US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, State Policies Used to Establish Child-Support Orders for Low Income Non-Custodial Parents (Washington, DC, 2000), OEI-05-99-00391. back
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