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Child support payments serve as an important means for parents who do not live with their children to fulfill their responsibility to them and to contribute to the costs of childrearing. In most states, parents who are incarcerated remain legally responsible for complying with their child support orders. And, although it is true that a child’s needs for financial support do not diminish just because a parent is incarcerated, it is also true that most parents who are incarcerated have little or no ability to meet their child support obligations.¹

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Child support payments serve as an important means for parents who do not live with their children to fulfill their responsibility to them and to contribute to the costs of childrearing. In most states, parents who are incarcerated remain legally responsible for complying with their child support orders. And, although it is true that a child’s needs for financial support do not diminish just because a parent is incarcerated, it is also true that most parents who are incarcerated have little or no ability to meet their child support obligations.¹

Prison-based employment programs are limited in scope, and wages (e.g., $0.23 per hour) are not comparable to what is paid in the community,² making it nearly impossible to raise the typical $225–$300 monthly child support payment in most cases.³ Some parents have been shown to owe more than $20,000 when they are released from prison.⁴

Research highlights the importance of programs that, in appropriate situations, facilitate and strengthen family connections during incarceration.⁵ Parents who make regular child support payments are likely to have improved familial ties that can help reduce recidivism and restore stability.⁶ Realistic payment amounts can also help to ensure long-term payment compliance. Unless suspended or reduced during incarceration, accumulated child support debt can interfere with family reunification in desired circumstances, and undermine a parent’s efforts to retain regular, legal employment that will be a source for ongoing child support payments upon release from prison or jail.⁷

The recommended strategies that follow are designed to improve people’s ability to meet their child support obligations after their release from prisons and jails. These include authorizing the reduction or suspension of child support obligations during periods of incarceration when there are insufficient assets; sharing information among corrections and child support enforcement agencies; and using enforcement methods that promote employment and long-term payment of child support.⁸

Recommendations

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): 88.

² Rob Atkinson and Knut Rostad, “Can Inmates Become an Integral Part of the U.S. Workforce? Employment Dimensions of Reentry: Understanding the Nexus between Prisoner Reentry and Work,” presented at the Urban Institute Reentry Roundtable, May 19–20, 2003, New York University Law School.

³ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Managing Child Support
Arrears—A Discussion Framework: Summary of the Administration for Children and Families, Regions I, II, & III Third Meeting on Managing Arrears (Washington D.C.: Office of Child Support Enforcement,
2003). Personal communication, Senior Staff Attorney, Vicki Turetsky,
Center for Law and Social Policy, Washington, D.C., August 5, 2006.

⁴ Esther Griswold, Jessica Pearson, and Lanae Davis, Testing a Modification Process for Incarcerated Parents (Denver,
Colo.: Center for Policy Research, 2001).

⁵ Creasie Finney Hairston, “Family Ties during Imprisonment: Do They Influence Future Criminal Activity?” Federal
Probation 52, no. 1 (1998): 48–52.

⁶ Ann Cammett, Making Work Pay: Promoting Employment and Better Child-Support Outcomes for Low-Income and Incarcerated Parents (Newark: New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, 2005).

⁷ Elise Richer, Abbey Frank, Mark Greenberg, Steve Savner, and Vicki Turetsky, Boom Times a Bust: Declining Employment among Less-Educated Young Men (Washington, D.C.: Center for Law and Social
Policy, 2003).

⁸ The recommendations in Policy Statement 3 primarily address state-level policies because child support is administered on a state level by a single, designated child support enforcement agency. However, many of these recommendations can be implemented at a local level with state support.