ANCPR Protests Injustice of Child Support System

Leaders Call for

"The End To Child Support As We Know It"

 

10/19/98 7:36 PM

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On Saturday, October 24, 1998 from 9 AM until 12:30 PM, ANCPR members and associated parents groups will march in protest against the injustice of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Child Support Enforcement System. The protest will coincide with Supervisor Mike Antonovich's Child Support forum in Santa Clarita at the College of the Canyons, 26455 Rockwell Canyon Road.

As a recent feature series in the Los Angeles Times demonstrated, the Child Support Enforcement System headed by District Attorney Gil Garcetti and Wayne Doss is completely out of control. The adversarial system that Mr. Garcetti and Mr. Doss believe is working so well pits the nearly unlimited legal resources of the District Attorney's office against poor, uneducated and often powerless parents who have nowhere to turn for assistance. According to the supporters of the current system and the laws that back it up, the power of the District Attorney to seize the property of non-custodial parents and threaten them with incarceration if they do not acquiesce to outrageous child support awards is for the benefit of children. But according to ANCPR, bankrupting non-custodial parents with unreasonable child support awards and then prosecuting them with criminal charges for non-compliance serves only to drive the non-custodial parent into exile. "Gauging the success of the system by measuring child support collection does absolutely nothing to increase parental involvement in the lives of the children," says Lowell Jaks, President of ANCPR.

Children need the involvement of both parents more than they need money. An overwhelming number of studies demonstrate conclusively that no-fault divorce, sole custody awards and the concomitant emphasis on child support collection has hurt children by systematically excluding the non-custodial parent from the lives of their children.

The real problem is that divorce and child support, which used to be a civil matter between two individuals, has now become a criminal offense. Now the state allies itself with one party (the custodial parent) against the other (the non-custodial parent, normally the father). Unlimited power in the hands of the state (and by extension, the custodial parent) completely controls the life of the non-custodial parent. This is a profound development in American Jurisprudence. It is, in the final analysis, the fundamental flaw of child support enforcement.

It is the position of ANCPR that the entire system of Family Law must be fundamentally overhauled. Calling for "AN END TO CHILD SUPPORT AS WE KNOW IT", the Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents Rights demands that the incentives for greed and manipulation be eliminated from Family Law. Some suggestions for reform include the following:

1. There must be a presumption Shared Parenting in all divorce and custody proceedings nationwide.
2. Child Support guidelines must be lowered nationwide. Child Support must be based on the actual costs of raising a child, which if there is an order for Shared Parenting, would mean, in most cases, the elimination of child support orders altogether.
3. Make Child Support deductible for obligors.
4. Eliminate all fixed child support orders and base child support on a percentage of actual income earned with caps for those with high incomes.
5. Prosecute for perjury parents who falsely allege abuse in order to gain sole custody.
6. Eliminate all interest charges on child support arrears.
7. Place a maximum cap on all child support arrears.
8. Place the focus of Family Law on parental involvement, and less on child support collection.
9. Remove the District Attorney from Family Law and reduce the adversarial nature of Family Court.

ANCPR harbors no illusions that these reforms will happen overnight, but sees that they are inevitable. In order to hasten these reforms, ANCPR is calling for non-custodial parents who are obligated to pay unreasonable child support awards, to "Support your children, but not with child support." Urging non-custodial parents to openly defy the system with the cry, "Don't pay the DA", ANCPR anticipates the ultimate collapse of the current system as increasing numbers of non-custodial parents refuse to comply with the excessive child support orders imposed upon them by today's Family Courts. According to John Smith, of ANCPR, "Things are going to get worse before they get better. But eventually our side will prevail because there are simply not enough jails to hold them all, and the entire system will inevitably collapse under its own weight."