Deadbeat dads steal future

A thief lurks amongst us. His weapons are stealth, immorality and a penchant for covering his tracks. He is a thief, as culpable as any other, perhaps worse because his victims are his children. He steals from them anyway.

Unswerving in his defiance of numerous court orders to support them, he takes from them what is rightfully theirs as he subjects them to a life of scarcity and hardship by depriving them of adequate food, clothing and medical care. He has stolen his children’s future right from under them. His commitment to avoid paying support is exceeded only by his success at eluding punishment.

He has flouted court orders for so long that breaking the law and inflicting pain on his ex-wife have become a delicious challenge. He won’t be intimidated by the many thousands of dollars that keep mounting — why would he be? He has a collection of tricks that he has honed during all the years his support payments kept escalating. He works at jobs where the wages are paid off the books, he moves from place to place — usually during the night. He is always careful to withhold his address from anyone, he has his mail forwarded to a post-office box, and, most importantly of all, he lies. He has become so adept at deceiving the courts and the government that he has managed to keep this charade going for years. There is no remorse, hence no concern for the bleakness he has inflicted upon his children.

And he cheats. He cheats the government of taxes. He’s slick, he’s smug, and the notion that he’s pulled this off pleases him.

We all know this goes on. We all know divorced women who are staggering under financial hardships, who are constantly fretting, trying to decide how to make a paycheck meant for one stretch to buy food for one or two more. These mothers face loss of wages and jobs when their children are sick, and grow more desperate with each illness.

Why haven’t we fixed this? The criminals are winning, and the children are losing. Unless their mothers have medical insurance, they are going without adequate medical and dental care. Unless their mothers are on welfare or are earning a substandard wage, they cannot receive aid from governmental agencies. All the while, the offenders who have caused these deplorable conditions are drinking, eating, socializing, all the while their ex-wives are struggling to support their children. The ultimate power trip.

We can no longer look the other way. We need to intervene because to ignore this is to ignore our children, knowing the suffering it is causing them. We’re better than that. We can find these deadbeats and make them accountable.

The idea that an offender can break the law by ignoring the court’s order by hiding is to reward him for his lawlessness. Law enforcement apprehends other criminals whose addresses are not generally known. Why not these criminals? The loot they have stolen is public record. And they continue to rob at least until the children’s 18th birthdays.

The law should exert all the power it needs to help the most vulnerable segment of our society. When someone steals from a random victim, it is horrific; when a parent does so, it is unconscionable.

As a start, we can use the government’s resources to find these individuals and incarcerate them because they have broken the law. We need to prevent them from moving from location to location, sometimes out of state, all to escape what the law has decreed.

We know how to do this; we have to want to do this. We have to want to treat them as criminals and not wink the situation away because the victims aren’t the traditional victims of robbery.

It is time to become more aggressive in our quest to find these thieves. We need to burrow into their holes, remove them and enforce the law. Place them in jobs or have them work in government jobs until their debt is paid off, sell their vehicles for whatever cash can be redeemed. Perhaps they can be housed all together in a holding facility until the past payments have been made — kind of like a reform school. They can rebuild and repair rundown tenements — the cities will benefit from having completed buildings after some years from a source that will unfortunately be around for many years.

Myra Danon is a resident of Freehold Township

Myra D anon

Guest Column