Unable to pay child support, poor parents jailed – US news – Crime & courts | NBC News

It may not be a crime to be poor, but it can land you behind bars if you also are behind on your child-support payments.

Thousands of so-called “deadbeat” parents are jailed each year in the U.S. after failing to pay court-ordered child support — the vast majority of them for withholding or hiding money out of spite or a feeling that they’ve been unfairly gouged by the courts.

But in what might seem like an un-American plot twist from a Charles Dickens’ novel, advocates for the poor say, some parents are wrongly being locked away without any regard for their ability to pay — sometimes without the benefit of legal representation.

The original is here: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/44376665/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/unable-pay-child-support-poor-parents-land-behind-bars/#.UWszDL-bLTR