CHILD SUPPORT CASUALTIES

[ANCPR]

Hello,

Below is an article that appeared recently in mensnewsdaily.com.  It is
tragic that so many men are committing suicide due to the gross injustice
they face in family court.  In truth, most of the cases go completely
unnoticed.  They are simply suicides.  When investigated, there is often
only a single line that may say something like, "he was despondent over his
impending or recent divorce".

The only possiblility for widespread reform to be successful will be
increasing numbers of NCPs who simply don't put up with the system anymore.
Some time ago we advocated the slogan, "Don't Pay the D.A."  It never got
very far as most parents, especially fathers, have internalized and totally
accepted the line from the advocates for child support, and their
governmental cohorts, that child support, as it is defined by current law,
has its roots in a long history of law and social policy.  According to
these people, child support, or more properly, the institution of child
support, is a duty that has a long history.  This is simply not true.  Child
support as we know it, basically an entitlement program for single mothers,
was largely invented quite recently, as late as the mid 1980s.  The process
whereby the courts can steal your child from you, and then force you to pay
for the privilege of having the very person who destroyed your family raise
the child, while creating further estrangement between you and your own
child is unprecedented in all of human history.

Years ago, John Smith and I created some pages on civil disobedience.  We
never advertised them.  We made them look unprofessional and hoky, sort of
"tongue in cheek".  My ex-wife made quite an issue of these pages in my own
divorce, to the amusement of the judge.  I explained that the pages were ,
to borrow a phrase from Rush Limbaugh, "illustrating absurdity with
absurdity." After reading the article below, I revisited one of the pages I
just mentioned: http://ancpr.org/rad_jail.htm.  The page is called "Jams the
Jails".  I encourage all of you to make a visit to the page after reading
the article below. The tragic cases described in the article below happened
because these fathers felt so much shame and dejection that they killed
themselves.  What if they instead saw the injustice they faced as an
opportunity to make a stand?  What if they were willing to go to jail,
considering such an eventuality a badge of honor?  Men need to stand up and
be men.  Real men don't bow to pressure from idiots and thugs.  Real men
fight back with whatever weapons are at hand.  About the only weapon we have
is to jam the jails.  All the states are reeling in red ink right now.  In
New Hampshire, they are suspending all jury trials for a month to save
money.  The judiciary is getting so broke that the court rooms are almost at
a standstill.  California is laying off child support collection personnel.
There are millions of parents who are under the tyranny of a child support
order.  What if only 10% of them simply said "No!"  What would they do?  Put
as many as 300,000 additional people in jail?  Would they release murders
and rapists and child molesters to make room?  How could they justify
building ever more prisons to house all these people when they can't even
fix their roads?  Think about it.

Wishing you all the best,

Lowell Jaks, ANCPR http://ancpr.org

CHILD SUPPORT CASUALTIES

Ed Ward, MD
July 27, 2003
http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/w/ward/03/ward072703.htm

Randy Orville Brouse, 33, of Illinois, when jailed for felony failure
to pay child support, hung himself on July 21, 2003.  Prior to his
death, he was one of 50 Hillsdale County's "Most Wanted".  All are
alleged to be dangerous and wanted "for serious and often violent
crimes".  In fact, more than 60% are wanted only for failure to pay
child support.  The Hillsdale's dangerous, "Most Wanted" list of
those unable to pay the court ordered amount of child support
consists of 32 people of the 51 Most Wanted.  Randy is still on the
list.  How many of these dangerous felons will take Randy's place on
the Hillsdale mortuary slab before these atrocities end?

According to the unConstitutional family court's rulings, that made
the "Most Wanted" financially responsible for amounts they are unable
to pay and visitors to their children, the public is to believe these
32 parents would rather, have their driver's license revoked, lose
their voting rights, lose access to firearms for defense of home and
self-protection, lose their job and ability to find a job, be
incarcerated and even to be forced to the point of taking their own
lives, than pay money to support their children.  The problem is,
even after their children have been stolen from them, most have paid
all they can and are NOT ABLE to pay anymore.

Trevor Goddard, 37, of North Hollywood, California, committed suicide
on June 8, 2003.  Goddard was at the height of his career.  His
credits include, Mortal Kombat, Men of War, JAG, Deep Rising, Gone in
60 Seconds, and the recently released, Pirates of the Caribbean.  Few
know that Trevor was in the middle of a divorce and finding out just
what that means to a loving father.  There were many articles on his
death, but, only one mentioned his pending divorce.

Unknown man, unknown age, of Kendallville, Indiana, committed
possible suicide in the only article released on his death.  There
was no response, the typical media response, to the email sent by his
close friend to the 22 email addresses at kpc news.  When this
article is pubished, the author will send them the address of this
article, the name of the unknown man, the link to their story, the
link to the email to them, ask them their secrets to sound sleep and
ask them, again, to do a follow-up story on James Betzner.  They must
have some great remedies to sleep after ignoring the email sent to
them and still not publishing another story.  Will those remedies
work for the next unknown man article?

Robert R Steadman, 33, of Sewickley Township, Pennsylvania, hung
himself in April, 2003 during his second imprisonment for failure to
pay child support.  Since Robert was only one sentence of the story
dealing with suicide watch policy changing for that prison, it is
unknown if this second jailing was a 90 day recycle.  The recycle is
a jail term of 90 days.  After 90 days, the prisoner is released,
only to be greeted by another incarceration for failure to pay child
support for 90 days and the cycle is continued.

Reinaldo Rivera, 25, of New Jersey was jailed for failure to pay
child support.  He hung himself with a sheet after one week in jail
in April, 2003.

Mark Edward Dexel, 42, of Canada hung himself on January, 23, 2003 in
a Kamloops motel after he was banned from seeing his son by the
Canadian family courts.

Derrick K. Miller, 43, of San Diego, California, walked up the steps
courthouse steps to the San Diego family court's security guard on
January 7, 2002.  Miller had recently been judged to pay support he
obviously did not have.  While holding his divorce papers in one hand
and pulling a pistol in the other, he told the guard, "You did this
to me!".  Derrick quickly pulled the trigger, on the only option left
to him and many other fathers, that sent a bullet through his head
and died.

Carl Tarzwell, Jr., 37, was arrested on June 20, 2001, for failing to
pay child support. Carl hung himself within a few hours of being
jailed. Carl's death was revealed in a November, 2001, article
dealing with excessive suicides in prison.

James Gunter, 45, an emergency services police officer, described
as "one of those steely, go-to guys, a natural in a crisis", took his
life on the third try while incarcerated for the third time.  James
was arrested for failing to pay child support and failing to stay
away from his ex-wife.  Gunter's daughter stated, "He couldn't stand
to be away from his kids,".  James Gunter found peace on September
15, 2000.  It was not until March 24, 2002 that Jame's story became
noted by the press in a story about jails being at fault for lack of
care in suicides.

Randy Johnson, 34, of  Sommerset, Kentucky hung himself on the second
day of his incarceration for felony failure to pay child support in
January, 2001.  He could have been sentenced to 5 years.  Johnson
worked for the Sugar Shack making donuts.  His employer said he was
trying to lead a new life. Johnson's story is revealed in an article
about suicides in Boyle County prison.

Darren Bruce White, 34, of B.C., Canada, killed himself sometime
between March 12, 2000 and March 17, 2000, when his body was found.
Darren's suicide came shortly after a court ruling he was capable,
something US family courts are also known to do as attested by the
author in his personal experience, of paying $2,071 a month in
support.  The court had no concern that he was paying $439 a month
support in his first marriage and was only making $950 a month
salary.  White's daughter, Ashlee, expresses her grief regarding the
current system.

Dimitrius Underwood, 22, the defensive end for the Miami Dolphins,
slashed his throat with a kitchen knife when the Lansing police tried
to arrest him for failing to pay child support.  Dimitrius's story,
due to his notoriety, was published quickly on September 28, 1999.
But, as usual, the article only dealt with the effect and not the
cause.

David Guinn, 38, incarcerated for probation violations and was behind
on his child support, hung himself on November, 1998.

James A. Poore, 33, of Bristol, Tennessee, arrested for failing to
appear at a child custody hearing, found a shotgun while on a work
release program and promptly blew a hole in his chest in March,
1999.  Sheriff Eddie Barnes stated it would not stop the work release
program.

Kenneth Taylor, 40, of Nebraska, hung himself while jailed for felony
child support in November, 1999.


Every year 24,000 men commit suicide. Every 22 minutes one male
commits suicide.  Based on the fact that a divorced male is 2.5 to 3
times more likely to commit suicide than the average male, the
estimate for divorced men, most likely fathers since there is
tremendously more trauma placed on them, committing suicide every
year would be 15,000 to 18,000 men.
When will it stop?  How will it stop? Where is the men's backlash?
Many splintered equal parenting groups are asking the same
questions.

One small group of 13 fathers, Hunger Strike for Justice, has pledged
to start a hunger strike on September 25, 2003 in an effort to break
the media blockade and the lack of government address of family,
children and individual rights.  Their determination, resolve and
effectiveness is yet to be tested, but, they have had enough of
injustice.

Felons can't vote.  The dead can't demonstrate.  Men running from
incarceration can't take legal remedies.  Jail severely limits
protesting and information dissemination.  Those that are stretched
to their limit have neither the effort, nor the time to do very much,
except to be with their children when they can, if they can.  Many
that would fight this deadly system see no hope and have been
crushed, emotionally, financially and spiritually.  Many are afraid
they will lose the little access they have to their children if they
make waves.  Media ignores the problems being caused and promotes the
deadbeat bandwagon.  The government does the same, while spending
billions more than they collect in the child support scam and even
more billions for those incarcerated.  That just does not leave many
left to be activists.

It is estimated that the total national number of incarcerated
fathers for failure to pay child support is 250,000.  Some believe
the number is closer to 400,000.  According to the Missouri
legislative report, in 1998 there were 1,770 misdemeanor failure
jailings and 900 felony jailings.  Every year, there has been more
and more hysteria to lock up "deadbeats" by the states.  The author
has seen similarly populated states in the 4,000 range in years 2000
and 2001.  It's not hard to see those numbers could very well be true