Books
FIGHTING FOR CHILD SUPPORT
Illinois has won some battles, hut not the war
Review essay by Maureen Foertsch McKinney
MAKE THE JERK PAY
Tracking Down a Deadbeat Dad
and Getting Child Support
Louis J. Rose and Roy Malone, 1999
Albion Press
Brian Stewart's been equated with
Saturn, a Roman god who cannibalized his children rather than raise them.
But that's far too generous an analogy to
Stewart, a southwestern Illinois medical
technician sentenced last January to life
in prison after prosecutors contended
that in 1992 he injected his 11-month-old
son with the AIDS virus to avoid paying
child support. Being devoured by a savage god seems a far more merciful death
than the torturous wrath of AIDS Stewart inflicted upon his son as retribution
for being born.
This is a case steeped in bitter irony.
The costs of raising the boy, who was
diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in
1996, have grown
exponentially from
the $267 per month
in child support
Stewart so dramatically balked at
paying. The boy's
mother told the
judge at Stewart's
sentencing hearing
she feels guilty that
her children must
live in poverty so she
can qualify for the
financial assistance
that provides her
son with the costly
medicines that extend his life.
Databases to search:
•Consumer credit reports
•Magazine and direct mail lists
•Voter registration
•Property holdings
•Corporation records
•Liens, lawsuits, judgments
•Social Security records
•Hospital and medical records
•Vehicle, boat and plane ownership
• Workers compensation claims
Source: Make the Jerk Pay
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The ultimate irony may be that
hundreds of thousands of other Illinois
men put up little or no struggle to avoid
meeting that most basic level of
parental responsibility. Of Illinois'
more than 730,000 child support
cases, only 85,899 resulted in collections
in 1996. A 1998 report by the National
Center for Youth Law ranked Illinois
second from last among the states in the
percentage of cases where some dollars
are collected. Collections occurred in
just 11.8 percent of cases in this state in
1996 — the year the report was based
on — while the national average was
20.5 percent.
There is a bit of
good news. Illinois
appears to have
made improvements
in its pitiful record
of child support
enforcement, which
has made it somewhat harder for
deadbeat parents to
hide. But while
Illinois and other
states struggle to
wage war on deadbeats, the authors of
a new book argue
there's a wealth of
strategies custodial
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32 / May 1999 Illinois Issues
parents can use on their own.
The Stewart case, which was
tried in St. Charles County,
Mo., may be the most egregious
example of a deadbeat dad laid
out by these authors, St. Louis
Post-Dispatch reporters Ray
Malone and Louis J. Rose (now
retired), in their not-too-subtly
titled book Make the Jerk Pay:
Tracking Down a Deadbeat Dad
and Getting Child Support.
Another deadbeat dad who made
the book is Gary Elliott, a father of
seven from downstate Coffeen who
deserted his family by making it
appear he had been killed. He turned
up, quite alive, in California 14 years
later, using an assumed name. One dad
was angry when his Rolls Royce was
seized because he owed $200,000 in
child support. Still another claimed he
was too needy to pay support because
of the expense of boarding his two
Doberman pinschers.
Some fathers — the authors say
nine out of 10 times deadbeats are
men — won't pay as a means of
getting even with a mother who has a
new boyfriend. Some are angry
about living apart from the children.
A smaller number genuinely can't
afford to pay.
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Comparing amounts of uncollected child support
in neighboring states
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STATE
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Missouri
Michigan
Wisconsin
U.S.
|
SUPPORT DUE
$1,666,909,712
$2,269,245,742
$831,395,343
$868,124,795
$1,442,813,045
$4,694,409,776
$1,674,075,376
$57,084,401,183
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COLLECTED
16.8%
9%
18.2%
17.8%
15.7%
20.4 %
26.7%
20.8%
|
UNCOLLECTED
$1,387,160,733
$2,065,730,331
$679,972,448
$713,630,818
$1,216,168,585
$3,738,131,322
$1,226,602,082
$45,237,574,708
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US-RANK
38
51
34
35
43
32
15
not given
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Source: 1998 National Center for Youth Law report based on 1996 information
Note: Rankings include Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands
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Make the Jerk Pay offers
a plethora of advice custodial
parents can use to force
deadbeats out into the
open. Many of the authors'
ideas for finding a
deadbeat-in-hiding are
sneaky, but legal.
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The children are the ones who
suffer. The authors quote a child
speaking to a congressional commission about what the lack of support
meant to her: "My mom has been
working a full-time job that barely
pays over minimum wage. She is
going back to school at night to get a
better job ... we hardly get to see her,
so instead of losing just one parent,
we lost two."
Make the Jerk Pay offers a plethora of advice custodial parents can
use to force deadbeats out into the
open. Many of the authors' ideas for
finding a deadbeat-in-hiding are
sneaky, but legal. Use who he is, the
reporters counsel. Know he likes a
magazine? Call and complain that it
hasn't been delivered. Ask them to
read back to verify the mailing
address. Look at his hobbies, perhaps to find an e-mail address from a
Web site on chinchillas or foreign
videos he's checked out. Consider
what information is available
Illinois Issues May 1999 / 33
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The writers correctly point
out that government has
not done the greatest job
of hunting down deadbeats.
To the ex-wives they say,
"In the end, it's up
to you to find him and
help make him pay."
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through his profession, which might
leave a trail of licensing records with
up-to-date addresses.
For a fee, a custodial parent can
get a list of purchases the deadbeat
makes on credit through Uniform
Commercial Code filings. Big, undeclared assets might turn up, because
it may be unclear to the deadbeat
these purchases are logged as public
record. In Illinois, the secretary of
state's office keeps these records.
With help from an attorney or
staff at a child support enforcement
agency, a lien can be placed on a
deadbeat's personal property, which
he then can't sell or borrow against
until child support is paid, the
authors note.
Don't be afraid to ask questions
about him, the two reporters say.
People to talk to include the deadbeat's old employers, military officials and his school chums. The book
suggests police and private investigators often make lists of documents
to search, and offers some ideas of
records to check. Here are enough to
give a privacy advocate nightmares:
driver's licenses, car registration and
driver's records; marriage, divorce
and birth records; property deeds
and mortgages; telephone and other
utility bills; and assessment and
property tax records.
Malone and Rose even give advice
on ways to get the most help out of
governmental agencies. Be friendly
and polite, no matter how rough the
runaround has been — and bring
pictures of those kids.
The writers correctly point out
that government has not done the
greatest job of hunting down deadbeats. To the ex-wives they say, "In
the end, it's up to you to find him
and help make him pay."
According to the authors, that "it's
up to you" principle is especially true
in Illinois. A 1995 Post-Dispatch
article noted that $1.3 billion had
gone uncollected in Illinois over a
20-year period. In a 1993 series, the
newspaper pointed to another sobriquet for the Land of Lincoln: the
black hole. That's what child support
workers around the country call
the state because "cases go in, but
payments don't come out."
That reputation has not gone
unnoticed.
Discussions are underway to move
Illinois' child support enforcement
from the Department of Public Aid
to the attorney general's office, a
move Gov. George Ryan supports.
Rep. Joseph Lyons, a Democrat
from Chicago, along with William
Black, a Danville Republican, have
sought to gauge interest among
other House members.
Nonetheless, Lyons, who chairs the
House child support enforcement
committee, says it is not a foregone
conclusion that the attorney general's
office will take over the massive job.
A big benefit would be the muscle the
state's top lawyer could put behind
collection efforts. It's a pretty good
bet fear motivates more deadbeats
than other emotions, and a call from
someone representing the attorney
general is more likely to elicit fear
than one from public aid. But on the
downside, taking over the child sup-
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Least successful states at collecting child support
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STATE
D.C.
Illinois
Indiana
Arizona
Wyoming
U.S.
|
CASES
100,348
730,397
610,026
272,058
62,010
19,318,691
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COLLECTIONS*
9.9%
1.8%
2.6%
13.9%
14.1%
20.5%
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RANK
54+
53
52
51
50
not given
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TOP STATE
Source: 1998 National Center for Youth Law report based on 1996 information
Notes:*
A case with collection is considered one where any amount of support — from
$1 to entire amount due — is collected within the year.
+ Ranking also includes Guam, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands
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34 / May 1999 Illinois Issues
port behemoth may be too huge an
undertaking for an existing agency.
It may be best to create a separate
entity to deal specifically with child
support enforcement, Lyons
suggests. Though he says child support enforcement should probably be
taken from public aid, he believes the
agency has made steady progress in
recent years.
There is concrete evidence that Illinois is slowly improving. With $1.6
billion dollars in child support payments due to Illinois kids, 16.8 percent,
or $279 million, was collected in1996. In fiscal year 1998, the collection was up to $321 million,
or 21.4percent of the $1.5 billion owed.
Operational since September, a
new computer system that was
designed to meet federal requirements links counties
and child support enforcement offices throughout the state.
Also, in fall of 1997, the state began requiring employers to
inform the state within 20 days of a new hire's name, address
and Social Security number. Within eight months after the law took effect,
1.2 million new hires were reported, turning up 100,000 dead beats. In that period,
40,000 parents owing child support were subjected to income withholding.
Under the old system, public aid was getting quarterly new hire reports,
which meant there could be as much as a six-month lag between a
deadbeat's first day on the job and the day child support.
enforcement folks learned about it. Under the new system, a deadbeat
would need to change jobs once a month to keep out of the spotlight.
That's better. But it's not enough.
"I think we're at the critical point where something big has to happen," Lyons says.
In April, Republican U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde of Bensenville co-sponsored federal legislation authorizing the Internal Revenue Service to take over child support enforcement. It's a far-reaching proposal that he and U.S. Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat, have tried unsuccessfully to sell in the past.
A big part of the problem is that there just isn't a loud enough public outcry over deadbeats, argue Rose and Malone. How true. It is only the dramatic cases — the Stewarts — that draw attention. Usually, it is the people with power who divert our attention from the less sensational cases: Poor women and children rarely make the news.
Well, these authors point to some sensational statistics: One in four American children live in poverty;
more than $40 billion in child support is owed nationally. That forces nearly 10 million children onto the welfare rolls. We all pay when the deadbeat doesn't. And the children will pay as long as there are Brian Stewarts.
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A big part of the problem is that there just isn't a loud enough public outcry over deadbeats, argue the authors. How true. It's only the dramatic cases that draw attention.
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From Make The Jerk Pay:
Ask yourself these questions:
•Does he like small town life or the big city? Would he locate near a city with professional sports teams or certain restaurants? Would he head for beaches or the mountains?
•Would he likely try to do the same kind of work he had been doing before he disappeared? If not, what other skills might he rely on?
•Would he stay in contact with old friends or relatives, especially his mother? Might he continue to donate to his alma mater, attend reunions or be on the alumni mailing list?
•Is he a military buff who wouldn't miss a chance to attend a reunion of his unit, or a mock Civil War battle, a show involving vintage planes or a motorcycle rally. If you know he's a fanatic about such events, would it be worth your while to stake out an event to see if he shows up? He might be on the group's mailing list.
•What kind of entertainment does he like? Is he likely to sign up for the symphony, museum or foreign films? Or does he favor rock music, auto racing or porno flicks? The answers may provide clues on where to begin looking.
— Louis J. Rose and Roy Malone
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Illinois Issues May 1999 / 35