| Criminal Penalties for Failure to Pay Child Support |
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| The Child Support Recovery Act, as amended by the Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act, makes it a federal crime to flee a state in order to avoid paying a child support arrearage. States use criminal contempt to punish parents who fail to pay child support upon a finding of an intentional failure to comply with a court order of support. More... |
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| Parent Locator Services for Child Support Collection |
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| The federal Parent Locator Service is available to help locate the parent of a child in order to establish a child support obligation and to collect past due amounts. More... |
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| Retroactive Child Support Awards |
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| In most states, initial child support awards may be made retroactive to the date of filing and modifications may be retroaction to the date a modification is requested. In some states, retroactivity is mandatory, and in others, it is discretionary.
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| Child Custody Mediation |
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| Mediation is one of a number of processes, known collectively as alternative dispute resolution or ADR, which are available for use by parties who have disagreements with one another that have traditionally been handled by the formal procedures of the legal system, but who wish to avoid the formality and expense of a court proceeding in seeking to resolve their differences. Unlike another well-known alternative dispute resolution process, arbitration, in which parties present the same types of evidence and adversary arguments they would employ in court before one or more disinterested third parties known as arbitrators, who then make a decision called an award that is generally binding on the parties to the dispute, the parties to a mediation procedure, with the assistance of a disinterested third party called a mediator, attempt to reach a voluntary agreement settling their differences between themselves. Mediation has recently received increasing attention as a method of resolving disputes in a number of areas of the law, including child custody cases and other family law matters. More... |
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| Income Withholding for Child Support Actions |
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| Wage withholding is a method of paying child support by having the obligation taken directly out of the parent's pay by the employer. Some parents voluntarily agree to wage withholding; others have it imposed upon them by a court. More... |
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