WANTED: Dead or Alive

By John T. Smith, Editor in Chief

There's something so innately American about the news story I ran across yesterday that I felt unable to let it pass without comment, even though it has led me to touch on that most difficult of subjects, child support.

This story has all the elements of a real, rip-roaring Western manhunt except the six-shooters and the covered wagon. It has fugitives running from the sheriff. It has 'Wanted' posters complete with photos of the desperadoes. It makes an appeal to the public at large to help apprehend these dangerous criminals. And it has pathos. Oh, does it have pathos.

"It's been a time keeping up with his tracks," she said. [She] recalls the earlier years when she struggled to raise her boys. She turned to social services for food stamps, but was turned away.... It was especially tough at Christmas...."

From the Goldsboro News Argus (Goldsboro, NC)
"Can you help find these five fathers?" Feb. 1, 2007

But what this story doesn't have is balance, or any indication of investigative reporting on the part of the journalists responsible for its publication. It's simply another puff-piece column filler about 'deadbeat dads,' but with a nasty twist: It publishes the accused men's names, last-known addresses, and photographs--mug shots, really--and asks the public to help the sheriff track them down and throw them in the hoosegow.

There is no mention in this article of the incredibly unfair way child-support is assessed in the U.S.; there is no mention of whether or not paternity has ever been established by DNA testing or only alleged by the mother; there is no investigation of the circumstances of the cases whatsoever. The article appears to have been derived solely from a child-support agency press release; no other source of information whatever is quoted. There are only the accusations, the usual complaints from the mother about how hard it all is, and a call for all good citizens to turn the buggers in. That's all.

But oh, how the Americans love that sort of thing. Put someone on a 'Most Wanted' list, and it's an instant news story.

There is some precedent for this sort of behaviour by the authorities; in the UK (and some other places), threats to 'name and shame' non-paying non-custodial parents have generated much comment, both within Parliament and without. But the all-out 'wanted' poster approach--and the willingness of the media to climb on board and publish such stories without questioning the facts--seems to be uniquely American.

The bad journalism evidenced by this story is bad enough, but what is even more disturbing is what the victims of this bad journalism say about the child support system in the United States, just by who they are. Three of these men are black; the other two are white. All appear to belong to what the Americans so delicately refer to as 'the underclass'. The 'mug shot' character of the photographs gives the impression (possibly on purpose?) that they all have prison records; whether they do or not is never mentioned in the article. Nevertheless, none of the men appears to be the sort one might choose as one's banker...nor do they look the sort who could ever rationally hope to pay child support arrears in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Yet the assessments against them range from $5,172.24; to $89,457.24.

The American fathers' movement commentator, Glenn Sacks, has written often about this problem. He points out that no abatement is made on child support during the time a man may be in prison--even if he is in prison for non-payment of child support!--and so the arrears continue to mount until they reach such astronomic amounts that repayment becomes a total impossibility. Thus the vicious circle of the American child-support system claims victims on both sides--too many children get no support from their fathers, because their fathers have been classified as criminals and jailed...which then prevents them from earning any money with which to pay the ever-mounting arrears...which means they wind up back in jail.... Debtors' prison was common in 19th-century England; it was outlawed because Parliament finally realised one can't pay one's debts if one can't work. It is grimly ironic that this lesson is ignored by the Americans.

But now we come to the real meat of the matter. Child support is the touchiest of subjects one can address. No one working in the fathers' aid movement can ignore the sad fact that there are some deliberate deadbeat 'fathers' out there (and I put the word in quotes, because I don't consider a man who won't support his children a real father), and though they may be relatively few in number, they give a disproportionately bad name to all the rest of us. Thus, whilst complaining of the sort of frontier justice practised by the Americans, we need to remember--as always--that the real victims are the children.

And we also need to remember that complaining of a problem does not fix it: One should offer a solution, too. Here is one that holds the possibility of 'killing two birds with one stone'.

The basis for child support is the starting point for any consideration. It is this: That parents have an obligation to support their children until such time as they can support themselves. That is the very essence of being a parent, and although support comes in flavours other than financial, the pounds, dollars, marks, sheckles, and rupees cannot be ignored. (To put it crudely, if you can't make the hire-purchase payments, don't buy the car.)

But while child support laws in different countries vary--some better and some worse than those in use in the U.S.--none of them address the essential, elemental fact that it is both parents who should pay (they both have equal responsibility for bringing the children into the world, do they not?).

Instead, there is an assumption that the custodial parent fulfills her entire obligation simply by keeping the children under the same roof with her. All cash support is assumed to be the obligation of the non-custodial parent. This, we feel, is the basic injustice--and principal problem--of all present child support laws. By changing this, governments would restore the equity that is sorely missing, and simultaneously eliminate one of the major but rarely-acknowledged reasons that women fight so hard to keep custody away from their children's fathers: so they can get that cash bonus along with the children.

We therefore propose a child support system wherein both parents are required to pay equal amounts into an escrow account for the children, and wherein it also takes the authorisation of both parents to draw any amount out of it. Thus money paid for the children's benefit would be derived from both their parents...and both their parents would have a say in how that money is spent for them. Custodial parents who would wish to use child-support money for their own personal benefit would be unable to do so. The children would be the sole beneficiaries, as it should be. Child-support money would not buy Mum some fancy knickers to thrill her new boyfriend; it would pay for little Johnny's warm pyjamas.

In cases where the parents simply cannot agree on how much to spend on what, a trustee would be elected (or appointed by the family court) to administer the funds. And if there were a radical difference in earning power between the two parents, the lower-earning parent would be allowed to pay a smaller monthly portion while the higher-earning parent took up the slack. But the lower earner would be required to continue to pay after the children reached majority...and those payments would go to the other parent instead of to the children, in repayment of the 'loan'. The payments would continue until the difference in the parents' contributions to the children's support fund were paid back to the higher earner, with interest.

In a system structured this way, there would be no additional cash benefit accruing to either parent simply because he or she had custody of the children. Thus a strong and selfish incentive to fight tooth and nail for sole custody would be eliminated...and one can hope that this would promote better cooperation between separating parents in jointly raising their children, as their children deserve.

Failing the establishment of an equitable child support system of this type, I see only darker clouds on the horizon. Above and beyond the spectre of debtors' prison is the spectre of the Old-West, frontier-type mentality that went with posters headed, 'WANTED: Dead or Alive.' The only thing lacking--for the moment--is the offer of a reward to entice bounty hunters to track the blighters down. If something isn't done to change things, I fear it won't be long before we see that, too.

--John T. Smith