The Penalties for Not Paying Child Support

When I have probationers who come into my office and tell me that they owe back child support, I am 95 percent certain that I am going to have problems with them. The penalties for not paying child support are pretty severe, and with probation, we are essentially asking irresponsible people to be responsible in a number of ways. Back child support is almost as problematic in successfully completing probation as drug use, and it is something that I always hate to see.

I had a probationer come in a few months ago who was not paying child support and told me it was because she did not make enough money to do so. I asked her how much she made per month, and it was well over what she was supposed to pay. She did not seem to be the slightest bit concerned about the issue and that carried over to her probation fees. She did not feel a need to pay those, and within a few months, because she was not meeting any of the other conditions of her probation and had a couple of positive drug tests, I sent her file back to court for a motion to revoke.

She was arrested within a few weeks and immediately called me, pleading to be let back onto probation. I explained to her that it was out of my hands now and that she would have to explain what happened to the judge. Well, when it came out that she was also not paying child support, it was discovered that she had a bench warrant in another county, and before her revocation hearing could even be conducted on her motion to revoke, she had to go and sit six months in the other county's jail.

Needless to say, she was not a happy camper and tried to blame everyone else for her troubles. She was crying and screaming that it was not fair to her to put her in that kind of situation. When all was said and done, I asked a representative from the attorney general's office how much my probationer owed in back child support. The woman informed me that by not paying child support for more that three years, she owed more than $36,000 and was not going to be given any kind of leniency, because she was not even making an effort to help support her son.

This is just one example of the kind of story I hear on a monthly basis about people not paying child support. It is a major pain for me to have to deal with, and I almost want to tell those people when they are placed on probation just to serve their time in prison, because in all likelihood, they are not going to make it anyway.

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