Article From Wake County Judge Kristin Ruth
BREAKING THE “CYCLE” THROUGH COURT-BASED PROBLEM SOLVING TECHNIQUES
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Byline: The Honorable Kristin Ruth is a District Court Judge in Wake County (Raleigh), North Carolina. She has served on the bench since 1998 and has recently led the NC Child Support Enforcement Association and currently serves on the National Judicial-Child Support Task Force. Judge Ruth is one of the foremost experts in utilizing problem solving techniques in Court to obtain public policy objectives while simultaneously working to reduce jail overcrowding. For more information, contact her at 919-755-4101 or kristin.h.ruth@nccourts.com
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Byline: The Honorable Kristin Ruth is a District Court Judge in Wake County (Raleigh), North Carolina. She has served on the bench since 1998 and has recently led the NC Child Support Enforcement Association and currently serves on the National Judicial-Child Support Task Force. Judge Ruth is one of the foremost experts in utilizing problem solving techniques in Court to obtain public policy objectives while simultaneously working to reduce jail overcrowding. For more information, contact her at 919-755-4101 or kristin.h.ruth@nccourts.com
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The threat of going to jail or going to jail for failure to pay child support is just a temporary “fix” that most District Court Judges use in collecting child support. The daunting task of trying to persuade non-custodial parents to work and pay their child support obligation is one of the most difficult as judges listen eight hours a day to the most depressing cases from the hardest to serve population.
THE “CYCLE”
The “Cycle” is a familiar one. The non-custodial parent (Parent) is ordered to pay child support, Parent doesn’t pay, Parent is issued a show cause, Parent is served, Parent comes to court, Parent is found in contempt, Parent is ordered to pay a purge or go to jail, Parent pays the purge (generally $500), Parent is released and the “cycle” repeats itself over and over again. For those non-custodial parents who simply cannot or chronically refuse to fulfill their payment obligations, their incarceration in the local jail often extends for weeks or months. Naturally, this fact
THE MODEL
In hopes of “breaking the cycle”, Judge Ruth decided to incorporate into her orders the resources that were already available to her and implement a new innovative approach to the collection of child support. The collaborative efforts of the representatives of Electronic Monitoring, Working for Kids and other various resources have afforded the court a new approach to the collection of child support. These problem-solving techniques benefit children financially, provide opportunities to the unemployed and underemployed, creates a more favorable family atmosphere, saves the taxpayer’s money and reduces over-crowding in the jails. The facts and data indicate that progress is being made.
THE TECHNIQUES
Statistical data has been collected on three of the problem-solving techniques used in the child support court in Wake County, North Carolina.
Electronic Monitoring (EM), through Reliant Monitoring Services, has proven to have a significant affect on the non-custodial parent in paying their child support. In 2000, with the collaborative efforts of the Wake Electronic Monitoring Program, Child Support Enforcement and the District Court, EM was implemented in the child support courtroom.
Working for Kids (WFK), an employment service organization operated through Wake Co. Human Services whose mission is to work with non-custodial parents of children who are either unemployed or underemployed and having difficulty meeting their child support obligations. (Some of the families are receiving TANF assistance and others were not).
Incarceration (Jail), as a last resort, is an option as the non-custodial parent who has been found in contempt of the child support court order. The non-custodial parent has refused, is unwilling to obtain employment, participate in any of the employment or substance abuse programs or other resources provided by the court or resides in another county or state. A purge amount that is determined by the court is ordered to be paid prior to the non-custodial parent’s release.
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THE RESEARCH
(“Effects of Differential Court Sanctions on Child Support Payment Compliance”)
A Summary Provided By Rhonda Zingraff, Ph.D, Professor of Sociology, Meredith College, Raleigh, NC
The research design adopted to assess the effects of Judge Ruth’s problem-solving IV-D court in Wake County, NC, allowed for two community-based strategies to be compared both to one another and to the more commonplace use of jail. For non-custodial parents whose failure to pay resulted in a court order to be jailed, or to be placed on Electronic Monitoring, or to enroll in the Working for Kids program, their payment histories were collected for a six month window of time prior to and following the sanction they received. In order to examine payment compliance, codes were entered for each month to reflect whether or not a payment was made (a consistency measure) and what proportion of the amount owed was paid (an effectiveness measure). Consistent payments in full are not realistically expected from the population of non-custodial parents that tend to appear in courtrooms, but if gains in either how often or how much children benefit from child support payments result from specific judicial approaches, then courts can aim for improvements. This research project analyzed cases on record with each of the target sanctions (Electronic Monitoring, Working for Kids, or jail) from January of 2003 through June of 2005. Consequently, the payment compliance data ranges from June of 2002 (6 months prior to the oldest cases) through December of 2005 (6 months after the most recent cases). Employment information was limited in scope, but any sign of labor force participation by these parents was coded so that the relationships among sanction, work and payment could be statistically explored.
THE RESULTS
Each sanction was associated with statistically significant improvements in payment compliance. Gains in consistency and effectiveness of payments were discovered, and improvements in labor force participation were observed among cases in all conditions (i.e. under Electronic Monitoring, involved in Working for Kids, or jailed for contempt). At all times, regardless of sanction, parents who had some evidence of employment were able to comply more with their child support obligations. The sanctions, however, did appear to positively encourage employment, and the community-based sanctions were more successful than incarceration at stimulating additional labor force participation. For those supervised under Electronic Monitoring, gaining or retaining employment is strongly reinforced by program staff and provides a legitimate reason to leave the residence. This sanction is thereby capable of creating a work incentive that jail is unable to match. For those involved in Working for Kids, the personalized vocational support steers them toward employment.
In comparing the community strategies to the results found among the cases sent to jail, the payment histories suggested that Electronic Monitoring stimulates improvements in consistency and effectiveness that are better than what jailing parents achieves, and that the counseling provided by Working for Kids brings about improvements that are more enduring. Jail orders were associated with rapid spikes in payment, followed by patterns over time, that were more erratic than those found in the cases with community sanctions. The comparisons between the pre-sanction payments and post-sanction payments revealed compliance gains that were modest rather than dramatic, but statistical tests assure that these gains were not random. Judges interested in applications of the problem-solving model can take encouragement from these results.
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THE VISION
The vision is to set a new standard for the collection of child support in North Carolina and across the country. Children should not suffer financial hardships when resources are available and alternatives to incarceration are affordable and cost effective.
Jail over-crowding, unemployment and increased court dockets, staggering numbers of arrears owed to the children and the state, all of which are universal problems throughout the country have a potential remedy through the use of problem-solving courts. The model and data collected above exemplifies the success of many and the need to incorporate the same in other counties and states.
Judge Kristin Ruth
District Court Judge
Wake County, North Carolina
A Summary Provided By Rhonda Zingraff, Ph.D, Professor of Sociology, Meredith College, Raleigh, NC
The research design adopted to assess the effects of Judge Ruth’s problem-solving IV-D court in Wake County, NC, allowed for two community-based strategies to be compared both to one another and to the more commonplace use of jail. For non-custodial parents whose failure to pay resulted in a court order to be jailed, or to be placed on Electronic Monitoring, or to enroll in the Working for Kids program, their payment histories were collected for a six month window of time prior to and following the sanction they received. In order to examine payment compliance, codes were entered for each month to reflect whether or not a payment was made (a consistency measure) and what proportion of the amount owed was paid (an effectiveness measure). Consistent payments in full are not realistically expected from the population of non-custodial parents that tend to appear in courtrooms, but if gains in either how often or how much children benefit from child support payments result from specific judicial approaches, then courts can aim for improvements. This research project analyzed cases on record with each of the target sanctions (Electronic Monitoring, Working for Kids, or jail) from January of 2003 through June of 2005. Consequently, the payment compliance data ranges from June of 2002 (6 months prior to the oldest cases) through December of 2005 (6 months after the most recent cases). Employment information was limited in scope, but any sign of labor force participation by these parents was coded so that the relationships among sanction, work and payment could be statistically explored.
THE RESULTS
Each sanction was associated with statistically significant improvements in payment compliance. Gains in consistency and effectiveness of payments were discovered, and improvements in labor force participation were observed among cases in all conditions (i.e. under Electronic Monitoring, involved in Working for Kids, or jailed for contempt). At all times, regardless of sanction, parents who had some evidence of employment were able to comply more with their child support obligations. The sanctions, however, did appear to positively encourage employment, and the community-based sanctions were more successful than incarceration at stimulating additional labor force participation. For those supervised under Electronic Monitoring, gaining or retaining employment is strongly reinforced by program staff and provides a legitimate reason to leave the residence. This sanction is thereby capable of creating a work incentive that jail is unable to match. For those involved in Working for Kids, the personalized vocational support steers them toward employment.
In comparing the community strategies to the results found among the cases sent to jail, the payment histories suggested that Electronic Monitoring stimulates improvements in consistency and effectiveness that are better than what jailing parents achieves, and that the counseling provided by Working for Kids brings about improvements that are more enduring. Jail orders were associated with rapid spikes in payment, followed by patterns over time, that were more erratic than those found in the cases with community sanctions. The comparisons between the pre-sanction payments and post-sanction payments revealed compliance gains that were modest rather than dramatic, but statistical tests assure that these gains were not random. Judges interested in applications of the problem-solving model can take encouragement from these results.
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THE VISION
The vision is to set a new standard for the collection of child support in North Carolina and across the country. Children should not suffer financial hardships when resources are available and alternatives to incarceration are affordable and cost effective.
Jail over-crowding, unemployment and increased court dockets, staggering numbers of arrears owed to the children and the state, all of which are universal problems throughout the country have a potential remedy through the use of problem-solving courts. The model and data collected above exemplifies the success of many and the need to incorporate the same in other counties and states.
Judge Kristin Ruth
District Court Judge
Wake County, North Carolina
posted by Todd Edwards @ 8:30 PM
