Child Support...A system with Victims on both sides
From The Desk Of Warren Ballentine
The reason why I became a lawyer is the same reason I am a Truth Fighter, and that is to shed light on the truth in a system I feel needs much improvement.
In an effort to continue my mission, today I am launching Child Support tv.com. This site has been set up to bring attention to an issue that has victims on both sides, custodial parents and non custodial parents
it is a system that imprisons non custodial parents and in some states charges them with a felony for back child support, even if the parent is living below the poverty level and a system that leaves 62% of custodial parents without child support leaving them and their children to live below the poverty level.
Childsupporttv.com has been set up to give both sides a place to tell their stories and empower themselves with the tools to understand their rights. It has also been set up to put pressure on the powers that be to work on reforming this system that even victimizes our soldier’s who come back from the war to find their licenses suspended and bank accounts garnished over back child support from orders that existed before they went off to war.
Half of uneducated African American men ages 25-34 are non-custodial fathers. The child support they struggle to pay usually does not go to their children, but instead goes to the state to reimburse the cost of public assistance, including welfare, for the mother and children. This is demoralizing for low-income men struggling to make a difference in their kids’ lives. Some of these fathers even live with their children and their children’s mothers, yet their wages are still garnisheed to pay child support to the state.
Many minority non custodial fathers have spent time in prison, often for nonviolent drug offenses. Under the current system, these men rack up thousands of dollars in child support arrearages while they are incarcerated. Interest accrues rapidly, and upon release many ex-offenders struggle under a staggering debt they could never hope to pay off. Some even return to jail for nonpayment.
Log on to childsupportv.com and tell us your story and empower yourself with knowledge how to navigate this system.
Each and every week we will also Take It To The Nation, to get your opinion on a story concerning child support.
As we learn more about the system I will bring in experts from government agencies as well as non profits to help us find solutions to this issue that effects all Americans.
Warren Ballentine ESQ. |
