By R.J. Rico
Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana inmates would no longer see their child support obligations accrue while they are behind bars, under a proposal that passed the House on Thursday after two heated debates.
Lawmakers voted 68-30 for Rep. Joe Marino’s bill, which is part of the governor’s criminal justice overhaul to lower the state’s highest-in-the-nation incarceration rate and save Louisiana millions of dollars each year.
Under the bill, child support duties would be suspended only if the offender has been incarcerated for more than 180 days and does not have the means to pay the money.
The measure, which heads to the Senate for consideration, had been met with opposition earlier in the week by lawmakers who felt that offenders would be unfairly dodging their responsibilities.
To win support, Marino backed a change brought by Rep. John Stefanski, a Crowley Republican. That amendment allows an offender’s child support obligations to be extended by the same amount of time that the responsibility had been suspended while the parent was incarcerated. An inmate who was in prison for two years, for example, could be forced to owe child support for two years longer than he or she otherwise would have.
Still, the bill faced objections from the chairman of the House criminal justice committee, Republican Rep. Sherman Mack.
Mack and other bill critics said the bill ignores children’s needs. It also places the burden on the child or the child’s parent to petition a judge and fight for the money they should already be owed, the Albany attorney argued.
“The amendment helps a little bit, but it’s still a very bad bill,” Mack said. “It sends a message that children are not a priority.”
Offenders who face large financial burdens upon their release are more likely to re-offend and return to prison, which would further hurt families, Marino countered.
During a contentious back-and-forth debate, Marino objected to Mack’s suggestion that he did not have children’s best interests in mind.
Marino said Louisiana’s criminal justice task force — of which Mack had been a member — had unanimously backed the proposal. He accused Mack of not being an active part of the team.
“Research shows — from the task force (meetings) that you didn’t attend — that if you want to give the child money and help that child, you need to help that parent not go right back to jail,” said Marino, a Gretna lawyer who has no party affiliation. “And when they don’t go back to jail, they help their child in a way that you may not be able to understand.”
Mack said he had studied the task force’s research. He said the research Marino was citing does not exist.
Marino said family advocacy groups, including the Louisiana Family Forum — which was also on the task force — support the measure.
If the task force’s 10 criminal justice measures all pass, Gov. John Bel Edwards expects Louisiana’s prison population to be reduced by 10 percent over the next decade.