In our last post, we left off discussing a recent U.S Supreme Court decision which determined that indigent parents facing incarceration for failure to pay child support do not have the right to an attorney. As we noted, the decision confirmed that states are not required to provide legal representation for delinquent parents.

The decision was a disappointment to advocates who say that not having an attorney in a civil contempt hearing increases a parent's chances of being put in jail, regardless of whether he or she is guilty of willfully disobeying the court's order.

According to some human rights advocates, lack of adequate legal protection is made worse by the fact that courts often order indigent parents to pay too much child support in the first place, increasing the chances of default.

A further obstacle for such parents is the fact that states many times seek to recover the cost of providing public assistance to the child of a parent unable to pay support.

States usually don't keep track of how many parents are incarcerated yearly for failure to pay child support, but a 2002 study by the Bureau of Justice found that around 10,000 parents had been jailed for failure to pay child support. That was about 1.7 percent of the U.S. jail population.

According to sources, those who have served in the military are particularly at risk for incarceration because of failure to pay child support.

Despite the difficulties faced by some parents, though, many judges are becoming more mindful of the problems faced by indigent parents who are behind on child support payments. According to the National Child Support Enforcement Association, state programs done an increasingly good job in recent years of ensuring poor parents aren't unfairly incarcerated, and of helping non-custodial parents learn work, parenting, and life skills.

Source: MSNBC, "Unable to pay child support, poor parents land behind bars," Mike Brunker, Sep 12, 2011.