[4] The effort to criminalize failure to pay child support began in the late 19th century, with moral condemnation, the desire for stronger punishments, and the need for extradition primary factors in this movement.
'"[4] The passing of criminal nonsupport statutes began the blurring of the civil-criminal line in child support cases that continues to spark debate among legal scholars.
[109] In Texas non-custodial parents behind more than three months in child-support payments can have court-ordered payments deducted from their wages, can have federal income tax refund checks, lottery winnings, or other money that may be due from state or federal sources intercepted by child support enforcement agencies, can have licenses (including hunting and fishing licenses) suspended, and a judge may sentence a nonpaying parent to jail and enter a judgment for past due child support.
On September 4, 1998, the Supreme Court of Alaska upheld a law allowing state agencies to revoke driver's licenses of parents seriously delinquent in child support obligations.
[citation needed] And in the case of United States of America v. Sage, U.S. Court of Appeals (2nd Cir., 1996), the court upheld the constitutionality of a law allowing federal fines and up to two years imprisonment for a person willfully failing to pay more than $5,000 in child support over a year or more when said child resides in a different state from that of the non-custodial parent.
To satisfy full faith and credit, the local law of the state of rendition will be applied to determine whether a judgment is modifiable -- particularly in respect to past and future financial obligations.
The act made it a punishable offense for a husband to desert, willfully neglect or refuse to provide for the support and maintenance of his wife in destitute or necessitous circumstances, or for a parent to fail in the same duty to his child less than 16 years of age.
The Commission stated that, "The purposes of this act are to improve and extend by reciprocal legislation the enforcement of duties of support and to make uniform the law with respect thereto."
In 1992, NCCUSL completely revised and replaced URESA and RURESA with the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA) to correct the problem of multiple orders.
UIFSA corrected this problem by providing that only one state would possess the power to make or modify child support at any one time ("continuing exclusive jurisdiction").
In 2008 UIFSA was revised to allow implementation of the Hague Maintenance Convention which ensures a uniform policy amongst countries and a way to organize child support issues globally.
West Virginia issues a divorce decree that gives the wife custody of the children and orders the husband to pay child support.
The commission, which Congress created in 1988 to recommend `how to improve the interstate establishment and enforcement of child support awards,' favored a system under which the modifying jurisdiction's law would apply.
The court granted the father's request that Maryland's guidelines apply following precedent while stating that the "governmental interest analysis test" would lead to the same result.
It is claimed that some of these arrearage cases are due to administrative practices such as imputing income to parents where it does not exist and issuing default orders of support.
[115] Since the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), a major impetus to collection of child support is the Welfare law.
Despite concerns that this provision generates government revenue, HHS reported that in fiscal year 2003, 90% of child support collections went directly to families.
Towards this end, the Social Security Administration provides up to $4.1 billion in financial incentives to states that create support and arrearage orders, and then collect.
[121] Clark County, Nevada's, district attorney office was independently audited in 2003 regarding child support payment collections.
Gerald Council, et al. As of August 2006, at least four states (New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina) do not consistently appoint attorneys in enforcement proceedings.
The judge can incarcerate the obligor for contempt of court for some time, presumably until the balance is brought current, similar to debtors' prisons of prior eras.
[126] Paternity questions which complicate the issue of child support can be due to incorrect information, fraudulent intent, or default judgements.
[citation needed] Financial incentives, such as child support, are often perceived to be a major motivation for a birth mother to commit paternity fraud.
[127] Current child support guidelines and policies have been criticized by fathers' rights advocacy groups, as well as by feminists advocating gender equality and reproductive choice for men.
[133][134] Melanie McCulley, a South Carolina attorney coined the term male abortion in 1998, suggesting that a father should be allowed to disclaim his obligations to an unborn child early in the pregnancy.
[135] Proponents hold that concept begins with the premise that when an unmarried woman becomes pregnant, she has the option of abortion, adoption, or parenthood; and argues, in the context of legally recognized gender equality, that in the earliest stages of pregnancy the putative (alleged) father should have the same human rights to relinquish all future parental rights and financial responsibility—leaving the informed mother with the same three options.
[4] However, because child support enforcement is now branded as part of the civil law, respondents do not have the constitutional protections afforded by criminal procedure.
Scholars argue that nonsupport should be fully decriminalized, as returning to criminal enforcement would create more stigma while not necessarily afforded more protections to respondents.
The provisions concerning the Federal-State partnership program for social services successfully concludes many long months of negotiations among the Congress, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Governors, State administrators, and spokesmen for producers and consumers.
Further, the establishment of a parent locator service in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare with access to all Federal records raises serious privacy and administrative issues.