One of the biggest hurdles many inmates recently released from prison face is the accumulated debt of child support payments they were unable to pay while behind bars. The courts generally issue child support orders based on the parents' income and ability to pay when their case is heard. But if a custodial or non-custodial parent is later incarcerated there's no provision for suspending the payment requirement until they complete their sentences, even though they're no longer earning any income.
The result is that hundreds of former inmates emerge from prison saddled by mountainous debts as high as tens of thousands of dollars that they have no realistic prospect of ever repaying. The consequences for them and their families can be devastating. Even if they want to participate in their children's future their criminal record makes it hard to find a job that would allow them to contribute.
Moreover, shame over their inability to pay can discourage inmates from contacting their families at all, further alienating them from the custodial parent and children. One of the unintended consequences of the current system is that the obligation to pay court-ordered child support can actually drive fathers away from their families, which is just the opposite of the law's intent. And as long as an ex-inmate is not in compliance with a support order a judge can issue a bench warrant for his or her arrest and appearance in court. It's a system that's clearly counterproductive in that it can actually harm the very people it is supposed to protect, namely the custodial parents and children of ex-offenders.
That's why state and city officials were right to try approaching the problem from a different perspective last weekend by setting up an alternative process to resolve these issues. Billing the event as a "Day of Reconciliation," the initiative offered former inmates and others who've fallen behind on their payments a chance to resolve their bench warrants for nonsupport and put themselves on a path toward meeting their child support obligations without risking the possibility of arrest.
The event was held on Saturday at the Baltimore City Circuit Court from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Child support officials invited about 400 parents (363 non-custodial and 43 custodial parents) who had warrant records for a previous failure to appear in court in connection with missed child-support payments to come in to have their cases reviewed and the warrants vacated. As part of the event, the parents were also offered an opportunity to meet with social service caseworkers and job-training counselors from the mayor's Office of Employment Development.
The caseworkers helped families apply for food assistance and other support programs, while the employment counselors worked on connecting job seekers to training opportunities in high-demand industries such as health care, plumbing, green construction, welding and machining. Roughly three dozen parents ended up embracing the initiative, and state and city officials are already planning to hold similar events in the future.
Maryland already has a program that allows some parents to have part of their debt forgiven if they consistently pay child support. That's a step in the right direction, but it only benefits parents who earn enough meet their obligations; it doesn't offer much help for those who still can't find a job. Yet it's in everyone's interest to engage those parents in a process aimed at allowing them to eventually fulfill their obligations and responsibilities. A humane approach like the city's "Day of Reconciliation" furthers that goal without driving parents away from their children.
Some 65 percent of the inmates in Maryland's prisons are parents. Does offering them a second chance to meet their obligations amount to giving deadbeat dads and moms a free ride? Not at all. The city and state should be doing everything possible to encourage people to comply with child-support orders and the threat of being locked up isn't much of an inducement. Parents who fall behind in their child support payments often do so because they're poor and face formidable challenges finding stable employment. The reality is that most probably would pay up if they could, and it makes little sense to try to arrest them simply because they can't.