est. 2007

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Jailing Good Men for Not Paying Child Support is Wrong

The Hon.Guy Joseph, Ag. Prime Minister of St.Lucia at the time made public an interesting view pertaining to the incarceration of good men for not paying child support. He explained the faulty economics made worse by the stigma that is then tagged to the men by an unforgiving society having acquired the reputation as a jailbird. The father becomes a social misfit as a result of being locked out from the society and the child NEVER gets the support the system should promote as a priority.

Watch the short clip to learn about his proposal about how he proposes for his government to help men.

 

54 responses to “Jailing Good Men for Not Paying Child Support is Wrong”

  1. TheoGazerts Avatar
    TheoGazerts

    There is a difference between a ‘deadbeat dad’ and a ‘single dad’
    Though not of often, we also have deadbeat mothers. No mention of them.
    Both parents must understand that children need continuous support and not an infrequent drip of a few measly dollars

    Very suspicious of the misogynistic Caribbean

  2. Well, Well Avatar
    Well, Well

    Educate the men AND women that responsibility is to their children, there is still the neglect of children and families prevalent in the Caribbean with men being the main culprits, it is historical and generational.

    Education is key to prevention., just as with everything else.

  3. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    David Mr Blogmaster, the acting PM does a smiley job highlighting this everlasting issue….not sure what may have led to the interest at this time as undoubtedly St.Lucian men like Bajans and Americans or Brits or whomever have been playing these non-support games for eons.

    For all practical purposes the issue becomes an issue only when the one obligated to pay support is not earning income recognizable by govt authorities…as clearly nothing can be levied on wages, monies won or monies inherited if there is none of that.

    Thus, if the St. Lucian govt has decided to ease the burden of a court sanction on the income poor obligated fathers by facilitating an additional govt program then that’s a good thing…however, and of course the concern would be here starts another welfare taxpayer funded program to facilitate the wayward behaviour of some indifferent men.

    Countries around the globe have been imprisoning dead beat parents (men mainly) forever – such laws are in most legal jurisdictions. And again of course generally this when the issue is significantly delinquent.

    But as the PM said what’s the point of jailing the man at costs which become more than supporting the child. And on the flipside what’s the inflection point and risk-reward when punishment is justified for outwardly unacceptable behaviour!

    BTW, in one US jurisdiction the courts have deemed it quite acceptable to deny driving privileges for serious outstanding child support debt (an act that could impede the earnings -work- made but also from which no portion is being paid to support one’s child—- risk/reward). Also too courts will allow serious fines and as much as two years in jail for serious child debt infractions.

    The St. Lucian 5PM is well intentioned…now he needs to get his bros to match their fatherly ardour with ambition and intent to earn a living whatever the hardship to support their youts.

  4. Bernard Codrington Avatar
    Bernard Codrington

    This is a perennial problem for which no easy remedy is in sight.

    Garnishing salaries and wages could be the answer if employers would cooperate. I do not believe any court system would jail unemployed delinquent fathers and it is repugnant to common sense to do so; since it takes BBD $30 ,000 p. a to house a prisoner at Dodds.
    Sorry David BU. As an economist I always must speak to the numbers. They are my hammer.

    The problem is a socio-psychological one where the children are used as psychological weapons in a war of failed personal relationships of parents.

  5. David Avatar
    David

    @Bernard

    This is where the blogmaster’s head is at. We have good men who want to support their children, however, they like many will be affected by the adverse economic conditions. This is not about deadbeat dads.

    As usual the real issues that underpin our society always go by the wayside.

  6. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    The hand thst rocks the cradle rules the world

    “Train up a child in the way that he should go and he he is old he shall not depart from it”

    Many of us train us men to be hard seeds and to have man womens causing it makes us men.

    And by the end of the indoctrination we complain cause our irresponsible village rams breeding up equally empty headed women.

    Now don’t get me wrong this statement does not include the well adjusted males and females who end up as single parents for whatever reason, I am referring to the plentitude of rabbit breeding sheeple who abound across Barbados and the West Indies and across the world.

    Can you get soursop fruit from a golden Apple tree?

    Then how do we expect this problem to abate if we feeding people te dysfunctional values of the bold and the wufless

    So now we are deep into the symptoms and the stigma of these symptoms and as is expected CANNOT SEE OUR WAY OUT OF EITHER CHALLENGE.

    But I should mention dat ent got Facebook so I ent see de goodly doctor’s recommendations…

  7. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    Your assistance please with an item Honourable Blogmaster

  8. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Btw in reference to men in jail
    What happen to Bush Tea? Lol

  9. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    The headline is what is termed in the media as “clickbait”. I wondered in thinking what grievous wrong has the Courts done to supposedly “good men” and all I found was a plea for the authorities to give some supposedly “good men” a break to use the local terminology. This descriptive “good men” covers a great many individuals who in no sense of the word can be considered “good” when it comes to supporting their offspring.

    The headline writer should borrow from the movies and scribe …..Jailing ‘a few good men’………

  10. TheoGazerts Avatar
    TheoGazerts

    “As usual the real issues that underpin our society always go by the wayside.”

    Why make things more complicated than they are.. The unemployed dad/mom is probably an insignificant percentage of the deadbeats

    Our society is plagued with a number of parents who refuse to shoulder their responsibility.

    Let’s not write treatise or propose theories when the word deadbeat is more than adequate.

  11. David Avatar
    David

    Really Sargeant?

    Why should a man have to go to jail because his only crime is that he cannot find a job.

  12. David Avatar
    David

    The system to be fair must be able to separate the good men who cannot find a job and not default to sending them to prison.

  13. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    These men that do not have a job are few and far and inbetween
    But there are those who are not jobless but have their priorties placed only unto themselves.
    They want to enjoy all the good things that life have to offer some of them would even boast about how many women they have and how much women do for them
    Even going to extreme of buying expensive items like cars and rolex watches and wearing large pieces of gold around their necks
    But when come time to pay child support they openly tell the mother not to bother them
    It is unfortunate that the good men sometimes get caught up with the bad but the child has to eat too

  14. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    There should be a system in place making these jobless dads prove that
    a. There were dismissed from the job
    b. That they are actively looking for a job
    c. That there are permanately disabled and cannot work
    A process which is designed and created to prevent dead beats dads from taking advantage of the system and the child.

  15. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Then there are the hard back old men who do not have two cents to rub together to mek nickle and worst yet unemployable thinks nothing of preying on the vulnerable young girl gets them pregnant then denies that he is not the father
    So what is the court going to do in that situation
    Ask taxpayer to have sympathy for that ole sorry bastard a.ss
    Hell no throw his sorry a.ss in jail would be the right thing to do.
    He is a waste any way have nothing to contribute to society

  16. Po Po Avatar
    Po Po

    @Bernard Codrington and BU David Hogwash is what most men wrote its also a travesty that so many men have their brains where the sun don`t shine.

  17. David Avatar
    David

    The appropriate analogy is the argument that the death penalty should be abolished because it removes the possibility of ONE innocent man being killed for a crime he did not commit.

  18. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    lets get real here, the most confusing day of the year is fathers day in Harlem, like woody allens film you gotta get the egg.. but there are consequences. You have to remember everything is not all roses for a girl that gets knocked up, besides carrying the child sickness etc. Guys have it pretty easy they get 9 months to find a job, any job and if they cant be prepared to baby sit and let the woman become the bread winner because for sure she is going to find a way to feed her baby..

  19. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Lers put a system in place that first and foremost protect the rights of the child to having a fair justifiably process towards their well being
    Not talking about rounding up and jailing willy nilly fathers who are looking for work and who have been diligent in supporting their children welfare before hard times hit them
    However the system cannot forget and forgive and reward dead beat dads by offering them a life line at taxpayers expense
    The govt out of respect and a duty of compassion and a humanatarian cause toward the child should bear in mind whose interst and needs should be first met and not be driven by political motives to convince all and sundry that rewarding deadbeat dads is the right thing to do.

  20. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Bush Tea out if commission . wait he afraid he has to pay road tax on the whacker

  21. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @Mariposa July 4, 2018 7:13 PM “Bush Tea ‘fraid he has to pay road tax on the whacker.”

    Lolll!!!

  22. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    The truth is that most men who refuse to support their children are not “good men”

    The truth is that most men who refuse to support their children NEVER EVER spend a day in jail.

    The truth is that the child support and child care responsibility falls on the mother and on the mother’s female relatives, her mother, her sisters, her grandmother, her aunt etc.

    The truth is that these alleged poor unemployed men, who are not paying child support, still have enough money to spend on their own recreations, their rum, their cigarettes, their marijuana, their cricket, their golf, their politics.

    The truth is that when the child support is not paid, then the rent is not paid, or is paid short, or is paid late, or all three.

    The truth is that in Barbados and the Caribbean the “landlord” is not a large corporate giant.

    The truth is the “landlords” are mostly little old ladies hoping to get a little rent money to supplement their meagre pensions, and when the child support is not paid and the rent is not paid, the little old lady “landlords” suffer too.

    The truth is that once a man grows accustomed to not supporting his baby, he also does not support his toddler, nor his elementary aged child, nor his secondary aged child, nor his college/university aged child. So wait, has he been unemployed for 20+ years?

    The truth is that this bum, I can’t think of any other word for him, then expects to be his son’s best man, and expects to walk his daughter down the aisle.

    The truth is that way too many of our Bajan and Caribbean men are poor fathers.

    The truth is too many of them are losers.

    And no I don’t want my tax money to be used to support their children, while they continue to enjoy their recreations, their rum, their cigarettes, their marijuana, their cricket, their golf, their politics

    Hell no.

    I supported my children.

    Governments HAVE TO find a way to MAKE such men support their own children.

  23. David Avatar
    David

    @Simple Simon

    Did you read the blog? The question is how can our system manage more efficiently to prevent jailing good men who cannot find work, something that is entirely possible in non performing economies of the region.

  24. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    Did you read my response David?

    Do you know of any willing, serious man who has been unable to find work for 20+ years?

    You want me to call names David including the names of men who have sat in our honourable house and have given their child mother’s hell to obtain a pitifully small grudgingly given intermittent child support?

    No David. We do not need a “system”.

    We need each man to manage his doggie.

    We need each man to manage his earnings.

    We need each man to put his children FIRST.

    FIRST David.

    Before the father’s recreations, rum, cigarettes, marijuana, cricket, golf, politics

    Children FIRST.

  25. David Avatar
    David

    Dont be an idiot, we have good men who lose their job through redundancy etc and maybe at a mature stage of life and therefore find difficulty maintaining the family. Especially managing two houses.

    On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 12:11 AM, Barbados Underground wrote:

    >

  26. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    I know that I am an idiot.

    Don’t I sign myself as such?

    Stupssseee!!!

  27. Bernard Codrington Avatar
    Bernard Codrington

    @ David BU

    I, too, am convinced that if these so called men are any good,they will find jobs and support their children. Unfortunately ,because they were raised by single women, they were not trained to take their paternal responsibilities seriously by their mothers. The chain has to be broken somewhere. Why not by the primary caregivers?

  28. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @Bernard Codrington July 4, 2018 8:44 PM “I, too, am convinced that if these so called men are any good,they will find jobs and support their children. Unfortunately ,because they were raised by single women…”

    Cuh!!! dear Bernard.

    You are generally so sensible.

    Didn’t expect to hear you say “because they were raised by single women, they were not trained to take their paternal responsibilities seriously.”

    So are you blaming the old women then? Why Bernard? Why? What did the old women of Barbados do you?

    It doesn’t take a whole lot of “training” to learn about the birds and the bees, to learn that once you become a big man or a big woman, and start to enjoy the thing that is properly reserved for men and women, that by then you would have learned how babies are made, and if you start doing “big people business” then you have to start taking big people responsibilities.

    Man! Nobody needs to go to Harvard, MIT, LSE, or the Sorbonne, or UWI to learn this.

    And some who have gone to Harvard, LSE, the Sorbonne and UWI still have not learned this.

    Stop blaming women for male failures.

    STOP IT.

    Don’t blame the young women and certainly I beg ya please don’t blame we old women. You don’t know how hard some of us have worked to try to raise decent men, you don’t know how many of us support our dear grandchildren out of our meagre pensions, because our sons, wufless just like their fathers [why do you think we are single women?] refuse to support our dear sweet grandchildren.

    You don’t know how badly our son’s bad behaviour burns our hearts.

    We can’t take heart burn, loss of income and public shaming too.

    Cuh!!! dear man!!!

  29. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    Simple Simon July 4, 2018 8:11 PM
    RE Do you know of any willing, serious man who has been unable to find work for 20+ years?

    You want me to call names David including the names of men who have sat in our honourable house and have given their child mother’s hell to obtain a pitifully small grudgingly given intermittent child support?

    No David. We do not need a “system”.

    We need each man to manage his doggie.

    We need each man to manage his earnings.

    We need each man to put his children FIRST.

    FIRST David.

    Before the father’s recreations, rum, cigarettes, marijuana, cricket, golf, politics

    Children FIRST.

    YOU ARE NOT AN IDIOT
    BUT YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THE HYPOCRISY ON BU
    CHILDREN ARE ONLY FIRST WITH REFERENCE TO THE CHILDREN OF PEOPLE SEEKING TO ENTER THE USA ILLEGALLY

    IN THE SAME WAY THAT THE AMERICANS DONT CARE ABOUT THE CHILDREN OF THEIR 0WN , IN LIKE MANNER WE DONT CARE ABOUT OUR OWN CHILDREN EITHER

    BARE HYPOCRISY IN DE BU RUM SHOP

    Children FIRST. AND WE MUST LOOK AFTER THE CHILFREN IS ONLY A CONVENIENT SLOGAN TO SOME WHEN IT SUITS THEM

  30. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    You men need to stop finding excuses for these morally bankrupt men who are sperm donors and should not even be dignified to be called Fathers
    After all a father does his duty with a commitment to the child
    It is so offensive to listen to some here trying to place blame on a parent namely the mother who has to be head of household having the duel role of mother and father after the sperm donor “father” bails leaving the mother to take on his responsibility

  31. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    I am sure that you supported your children GP and Mariposa, through good times and hard times, and that you did not expect a “system” or your reviled mother-in-law to support your children for you.

  32. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    There are men whose mothers-in-law financially, socially, morally, spiritually, and psychologically supported the young men’s children, and if they see that old woman walking ‘long the road in a hot water rain they would not even stop to offer her a lift.

    My beloved mother was such a woman. It is not new. She would be over 100 years old if she was alive.

  33. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    SS I am sure that you supported your children GP through good times and hard times, and that you did not expect a “system” or your reviled mother-in-law to support your children for you.
    YOU ARE CORECT SS
    I HAVE OFTEN GONE WITHOUT SO THAT THEY GOT WHAT THEY WANTED

  34. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Heard stories of how some of these dead beat men would get involved with women having three and four children and would marry the women because she is financially stable and dont ever think of giving his own child from another woman a dime of his new found financial fortune
    Then when he is summoned to court tells the judge he aint got a job
    When the judge in response ask how he lives and eat .His response to the judge his wife takes care of the home.
    Can anyone believe the nerve of this two timing low life sperm donor
    Tells judge “he aint got a job”
    Fuh sure his back side needs to see the inside of a jail

  35. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    On the other side of the coin i know of the good dads
    Have met a couple of them who are dedicated and would spare their last dime to make their children happy and if they feel on hard times there is no judge in the world that would sentence them to jail
    Reason why !because they keep records of all their personnel and financially responsibility to their children just in case the bombastic mother they are dealing with use the child as weapon to milk them for money not owed to the child using back payments as a tool of choice
    Oh yes there are a bunch of f. ked up fakers on both sides that only care about themselves including the politicians who has a warped view that reaching into taxpayers pockets is the best solution to tackling child support

  36. David Avatar
    David

    @Bernard

    The article is about good men who genuinely find themselves in a case of hardship for one reason or the other and as a result are unable to adequately support their children. You must be aware that hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn they say and these good men end up in the court system where the court has no choice but to order child support payments. If the man is unable to pay, they can find themselves going to jail. This is unfair and the point the acting Prime Minister in the video made. Clearly there are deadbeat men but this is not the focus of this blog.

  37. Po Po Avatar
    Po Po

    Could these persons who hide and talk so much shite understand the the post? Do some of these ignorant commentators understand men raise children also? I have a colleague who was laid off but extended family provided the material things the child needed then the mum stop the child going over. My friend was put in court and told my magistrate to find a job. That is what I think this post is abou.

  38. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Po Po get off the weed

  39. David Avatar
    David

    The blog is about good men ending up in prison because the couldn’t find a job to pay child support. This is a fact that cannot be refuted.

  40. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    PoPO,

    Do magistrates in Barbados have to undergo an IQ test? We need a proper family court with specialist judges/magistrates who understand the problems with relationships, having children out of wedlock and partners who are spiteful and want to use children to punish the other partner. This is not a Barbadian thing, it is universal.

  41. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    David what are the numbers of men that default while looking for job and go to jail .

  42. David Avatar
    David

    It is mainly anecdotal, you have to be around court officers and warders to understand how some women go after them. The blogmaster is aware of men who divorce agree to support the children, they lose their high paying jobs, go back to the family house, sell the car and catch the bus, finish their savings, then have nothing, the child payments accumulate and they are snatched up by the system. When this happens their reputations go south and it makes the situation worse. They are not many compared to the deadbeats but it does not mean the system should not protect them.

  43. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    No one will dispute that among the bad seed they are good seeds
    However politicians cannot come up with a policy that should legislate that the taxpayers pay child support until the godly father gets on his feet wuthout finding away forward to recoup that funding
    The problem lies within the court system and there is where the compassion and sympathy should lie
    Hell No not out of any taxpayer pocket
    What can be done is that a process whereby if state monies should be involved to aid the godly father while out of work
    The process can deduct any money paid for child support from the dad wages when he becomes employable
    An agreement which can lend aid to the dad and child and also repay the treasury

  44. NorthernObserver Avatar
    NorthernObserver

    @SS & ac
    I am in agreement with you both for the most part, the question I have is….why do all these ladies engage in unprotected sex with men, whom they know ‘are currently’ or ‘apt to be’ non-participating parents? Mek him cover de ting, or get yourself on birth control?
    Surely these ladies have seen the multiple generations before them and ‘how tings wuk’. Do they somehow expect they are going to change the prevailing mentality?

  45. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Northern in answer to your question
    They can be multiple factors involved
    Low self esteem no doubt can be a contributing factor
    Lady running on hard times and trust a man who lies about himself and his abilty to take care of her
    Btw not all these woman are single this problem occurs across the board within martial status which led to divorce no matter age or gender

  46. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Mariposa July 4, 2018 10:36 PM
    “Heard stories of how some of these dead beat men would get involved with women having three and four children and would marry the women because she is financially stable and dont ever think of giving his own child from another woman a dime of his new found financial fortune
    Then when he is summoned to court tells the judge he aint got a job
    When the judge in response ask how he lives and eat .His response to the judge his wife takes care of the home.
    Can anyone believe the nerve of this two timing low life sperm donor
    Tells judge “he aint got a job”
    Fuh sure his back side needs to see the inside of a jail”

    So what should be done about the many ‘wo(e)men’ who have multiple children from just as many multiple deadbeat men some of whom are known only by their ‘street’ or nicknames like “Gold-Teets” and “Big-Dick”?

    Instead of incarceration- as in the case of the so-called deadbeat men liming on the blocks- should the State perform female castration on these ‘loose-in-many-ways’ wo(e)men?

    Your government is ‘begging’ young people to breed in order to create an overabundance of workers to support a graying unproductive population by way of becoming future suckers to the crumbling National Insurance Scheme.

    So who do you expect would be having these’ dependant-for-life babies’?

    Middle class university educated career minded females?

    Are you expecting the 70% of students (females) leaving UWI to drop from their ‘educated’ station in life (aka high social undies) and go and sleep with the same deadbeat men on the blocks to make babies?

    If your government wants to resolve this social paradox and to get people to breed in order to prop up the base of its future tax revenues then it must stop promoting the use of condoms and be prepared to incentivize the poor to make babies for as sure as night follows day neither the rich nor the educated women will be making any major contribution to the State- promoted breeding campaign.

  47. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Miller why dont you stop telling lies on the govt. I have yet to hear govt say anything about population expansion via breeding.
    In any case what does that issue have to do with the article
    However on the issue of population expansion your govt support of open borders for all and sundry might resolve the problem

  48. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Mariposa July 5, 2018 12:50 PM
    “Miller why dont you stop telling lies on the govt. I have yet to hear govt say anything about population expansion via breeding.”

    The government under which political administration is the miller telling lies on?

    Why are you behaving like Simon Peter and distancing yourself from ‘knowing’ Ronald Jones?

    Didn’t he and others ask Bajans to make more babies so that his administration could crack the heads of their fathers and shoot some of them in their mothers’ wombs?
    The only cracking and shooting Jones will be doing now is shooting at monkeys cracking peanuts.

    If we are to go by the Employment statistics published by the government Barbados has over 70,000 of its working-age population categorized as Voluntary Idle.

    Why not get some of them back in the official workforce instead of people to breed like flies in an economy where there is no longer the need for so many hands to work in the fields when Sugar was King.

  49. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    If your are speaking of Ronald Jones his comment was made in a context which is factual.
    In any case when the native barbadian population continues on a downward trajectory the gene pool decreases signficantly along with the native barbados control ir ownership of what is there
    I belive Ronald Jones comment was in no way indicative of what you are indicating in your loose koolaid drinking drunken lips

  50. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    In addition “good men” who have to be jailed for failing to pay child support, will also likely become bad grandfathers as well

    20 to 30 years later and they are still unemployed or only marginally employed???

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