A look at how Mississippi s child support enforcement program often creates unintended effects for many of the state s families.The post For many families, Mississippi’s child support enforcement program proves nonsensical
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Editor’s note: This story is part three of a series examining Mississippi’s child support enforcement program. Read the other stories here.
Candace McNeil, an Olive Branch mother of two, said she’s received payments for as little as 25 cents through the Mississippi child support enforcement program.
The same program resulted in one Greenville father losing his driver’s license, an especially brutal punishment for someone who earns a living driving trucks.
Dowayne Charlot, who now lives in Louisiana, cycled in and out of jail for a decade after letting his child support debts pile up, eventually winding up in a modern-day Mississippi debtors prison.
‘unf-ck’ its child support program
A stack of cash money that noncustodial parents paid to help care for their kids sat unsupervised on a table in the middle of a room at Mississippi’s child support disbursement unit.
Local government contractor Rob Wells encountered the scene in 2010 when he visited the office to look for ways to improve a deeply flawed and antiquated system overseen by the Mississippi Department of Human Services.
The unit was responsible for intaking child support money, a debt the state imposes mostly on separated fathers, and issuing it to the correct family.
Many mothers had complained of long delays in receiving the funds. Wells knew about this because his company ran the call center where parents could call for help on their cases.