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"I've been an addict of one kind or another since I was a boy"
says Pierre Williams, who has spent the last 20 years in and out
of prison while battling his drug addiction. "The past year is
about the only time in my life I've been clean, and I like it.
I've spent most of my kids' lives holding their hands through
prison bars. I'm living close to them now, I'm getting a
straight job, and I want to be a part of their lives."
Williams was crushed when he recently learned that he owes
$12,000 in child support arrearages to reimburse the state for
the benefits paid to his wife and kids while he was in prison.
The support arrearages, which he never knew existed, will
consume as much as half of Williams' modest salary, virtually
destroying the possibility of the new, stable life that the 42
year-old East Palo Alto resident had dreamed of behind bars.
Williams is one of tens of thousands of California men and women
who have been charged child support and interest while they were
incarcerated, and who struggle under staggering debt as they
attempt to reintegrate into society. The debts drive many
recently released prisoners out of their children's lives and
into the underground economy or illegal activity. Elena Ackel,
senior attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles,
says:
"The wonder of the current system is that everybody loses. The
state tries to beat astronomical child support
arrearages--$20,000 or $30,000 in many cases--out of dead broke,
unskilled, and unemployed people who just got out of prison.
Some of these people even end up back in jail because they
couldn't pay the child support which accrued while they were in
jail. Who benefits from this?"
Earlier this year Los Angeles Assemblyman Rod Wright introduced
sensible legislation into the California State Assembly to solve
the problem. Assembly Bill 2245 provides for a stay of a support
order when a person owing support is incarcerated for more than
30 consecutive days. In addition, the bill establishes
incarceration for 90 days or more as a "change of circumstances"
upon which a support modification motion may be based, and it
sets up machinery to help prisoners file their support
paperwork. The Assembly Judiciary Committee is scheduled to
begin hearing testimony on the bill on May 14.
The bill is a sensible measure to reform shortsighted policies
which focus on recouping the cost of state-sponsored family
assistance programs and ignore the potentially greater cost of
criminal recidivism. According to California State Controller
Kathleen Connell, the average annual cost of state-level
incarceration in California is $21,000 per prisoner. Thus it
makes no sense to risk pushing ex-convicts back into crime in
order to collect child support money which many low-income
former prisoners will never be able to pay anyway.
Dianna Thompson of the American Coalition for Fathers and
Children, who will be testifying in favor of the bill in
Sacramento on May 14, says that the policy also ignores the fact
that "child support is supposed to be based on income and the
ability to pay. If you don't and can't have an income, child
support should reflect that."
Thompson adds that the current policy is irrational, because it
"creates a condition during an inmate's incarceration which
often leads them to being re-incarcerated--even though they
haven't committed a crime."
Changing the policy is difficult, because reforms benefit two of
society's most disliked groups, ex-convicts and "dead beat"
parents. While states such as North Carolina (whose legislation
AB 2245 is modeled upon) and New York have enacted sensible
measures to address the problem, California Governor Gray Davis
vetoed a child support amnesty bill two years ago.
For people like Williams, it is like being punished all over
again.
"I make no excuses for what I've done--the burglaries and petty
crimes I committed to support my drug addictions, and the fact
that I was unable to support my wife and kids," he says. "But
I've also paid my debt to society with many hard years in
prison. Now I want to do something positive for myself and for
my kids. Why are they doing everything they can to stop me?"
This column first appeared in the
Los Angeles Daily Journal and
San Francisco Daily Journal (5/9/02).
Glenn
Sacks' columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in dozens of America's
largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his website at
www.GlennSacks.com or
via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
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