Jailing fathers who fail to pay their child support commitments not only does not solve the problem but actually compounds it, according to United Bermuda Party Deputy Leader Michael Dunkley. That is why he is calling for Government to look at other ways of dealing with those who fall behind with their child support payments.

?We have a lot of people who have to pay child support and if they don?t they are sent to prison, locked up and they lose their freedom, their job and so they lose their ability to pay child support,? said Mr. Dunkley.

As a consequence when the person eventually is released from prison they are not only in debt for the payments already missed, but have the added problem seeking another job, and if they are successful will sometimes be tempted to ?skip? a few more payments while they try to get back on their feet.

This often creates a cycle of incarceration as they are caught again for not paying and jailed once more, said the UBP MP. ?We are not helping socially by locking that person up because we are making it harder and harder for them to pay their arrears. We have to change the way the law is in regard to locking people up for not paying child support.

?If a person has a job and is in arrears with their payments we should not be taking them away from their job and locking them up. ?If they have a job we should bring it to their employers attention that they have to pay child support and make them pay it.?

A further problem is created when a person paying child support changes jobs and does not tell their new employer about their obligations to make payments to the court, something that often only becomes apparent to the new employer when Police turn up with a warrant to arrest the non-payer.

Mr. Dunkley said he was not defending anyone who does not pay their child support obligations, but said some mechanism should be found to ensure that anyone with such obligations knows the clock is ticking if they leave a job without notifying the court of their change of circumstance.

He would also like to see some way for employers to check on the background of potential employers to see if they should be making child support payments, possibly through having access to the confidential data or being able to ring a hotline to the child support department.

This would not hamper a job seeker from securing a job, he said, because if they have shown they have the credentials to do the job the employer will still hire them but will also have knowledge of the need to have child support deductions made from their pay so that future difficulties are avoided.

Another way of tackling the problem of errant non-payers other than locking them up, said Mr. Dunkley, would be make non-payers carry out work such as assisting the Department of Works and Engineering with cleaning the roads and streets.