Ohio prisons director doesn't want deadbeat parents (in jail, but 1/2-way houses do nicely)

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/c...list=cleveland

Ohio prisons director doesn't want deadbeat parents
8/22/2008, 5:08 p.m. EDT
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Parents who fail to make child-support payments should
be sent to halfway houses instead of prison, the state prisons director
said.

Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and
Correction, said he supports a bill that would keep such parents out of
prison because it gives them a chance to get a job and make their support
payments.

"It becomes a win-win situation for the children and family members of these
offenders when they are able to maintain employment and provide monetary
support to the family," Collins said.

State Rep. Ted Celeste, a suburban Columbus Democrat, proposed the bill
Thursday. If passed, judges would be urged to send nonsupport offenders to
halfway houses for counseling.

The bill would take a pilot program that started last year in seven counties
and spread it statewide.

Celeste said sending nonsupport offenders to halfway houses would cost a lot
less than paying to house them in prison. It could also help ease prison
crowding.

State prison officials estimate that keeping those who fail to pay child
support out of their penitentiaries would save about $13,000 a year per
offender and increase support payments by 71 percent.

Those who end up in prison are usually the repeat offenders, after judges
decide they've had enough, said Linda Janes, a 17-year veteran of the state
prison system and deputy director of the Division of Parole and Community
Services.

Celeste's bill doesn't contain a request for funding to expand the pilot
program, which Janes said would cost the prison system about $2 million up
front.

But it would save the system up to $16 million a year, based on the average
number of nonsupport offenders who could be sent to prison, Janes said.

Of the record 50,633 inmates in Ohio prisons this week, nearly 800 are
locked up for failure to pay child support, Janes said. Based on the pilot
program, which has diverted 650 people who could have be sent to prison, she
estimated that 1,800 to 2,000 could be kept out of prison each year if the
program went statewide.

Nonsupport offenders generally serve six- to eight-month prison sentences.

Celeste said he thinks the bill can be passed in the lame-duck session after
the November election, possibly as an amendment to a bill the House passed
that is designed to help prisoners re-enter society.

Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted, a Republican, declined to comment on the bill
because he had not reviewed it, spokeswoman Karen Stivers said.

State prison officials estimate that keeping those who fail to pay child
support out of their penitentiaries would save about $13,000 a year per
offender and increase support payments by 71 percent.

Do the math, it's a lot cheaper for taxpayers just to give these
impoverished families $$$$ each month than it is to try bleed blood from a
stone. Better yet, just start free Childcare services and let the mothers
work.

There are better solutions than a primitive prison system to address a money
issue!