Abstract
States federal and state child support enforcement policies were intended to extract funds from absent parents to redistribute to children and to reimburse government expenditures on welfare. As the systems have developed, increasingly punitive mechanisms such as wage garnishment, attribution of income, prohibitions on freedom of movement, including passport denial, and ultimately incarceration are possible outcomes of failure to pay child support. These systems operate very differently for middle-and upper-middle-class families than for poor families. The structural inequalities disproportionately harm racial and ethnic minority families, particularly low-income families. A recent court ruling restricting access to counsel for civil actions means that noncustodial parents may be subject to contemporary debtors' prisons, compounding the effects of the expanding carceral state as the social safety net vanishes. This article traces the development of the child support enforcement systems through legislative, administrative, and judicial decisions, and, alongside empirical studies, examines how public policies purportedly enacted for the benefit of children living in economically fragile families have harmful consequences. Keywords: Child support / debtors' prison / incarcerated parents / policies / punishment / welfare The United States has developed a robust system for establishing and enforcing child support orders for noncustodial parents. Since 1975, when the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program was implemented, noncustodial parents have been expected to fulfill their financial responsibility as it pertains to child-rearing costs. The CSE program was designed with integrated features to ensure 5-33_1 Middlemass (96-116).indd 96 5-33_1 Middlemass (96-116).indd 96