Southern California Family Law Attorney Blog

When two parents make the decision to end their marriage, the custody agreement for their children will be decided in their divorce documents. Part of this agreement is the amount of child support that the parent who does not have custody of the children in California will pay to support the children over the years. This amount may be based on several different factors, but failure to make regular payments of child support is against the law, and may result in fines or jail time for the parent.

Recently, a county Sheriff made the decision to arrest several parents who were consistently behind on child support in the county. Although the amount of child support owed for each parent arrested is not known, all who were arrested directly violated court orders by not making regular payments.

The Sheriff may have been motivated by frustration with how frequently these situations occur, as he commented that there is always work to be done in this area. Parents also have the option to make arrangements for payments in the event of financial difficulty in order to avoid an arrest warrant.

When a parent is ordered to pay child support, the money is intended to support and care for the children from the marriage, and it is often the child who suffers when the payments are not made on time. In order to guarantee that the custodial parent has the resources that are needed to provide for the child, it may be important to have specific requests for child support written into a divorce agreement. If this is done, the parent has the law on their side in getting the money they need.

Source: Valley Central, "Cameron County cracks down on deadbeat dads," Veronica Gallegos, April 12, 2013