VIDEO: Child Support Awareness

COLUMBUS, Miss.(WCBI)—You have to buy food, clothes, and provide a home to raise your kids.

It can be tough for just one parent. Supporting a child is difficult but required by state.

“The law recognizes that both parents are responsible for providing and caring for the children. In a single parent home one person can’t do all that,” said Senior Staff Attorney Patricia Rives.

An order for child support is issued once the custodial parent sues and takes the other to court.

Rives says that’s where the consequences set in.

” If you are ordered in this court or any court in Mississippi, the law requires an income with holding order be issued in addition to a child support order. What that means is an order be sent to your employer then that employer withdraw the child support and then sent it,”said Rives.

Parents who fail to pay could also have to pay court fees or go to jail.

“Our Main concern is for those children,”said Itawamba Chief Deputy Jimmy Sartin.

Sartin says once the court order is complete, deputies work quickly to get the child the support it needs.

“Those who are not compliant, that’s what our focus is. They have a choice to either pay or they are incarcerated into the Itawamba County Jail. We have had several instances where people maybe in for long periods of time. They may be in one week, maybe one month, or in some instances they could be in there for 9 or 10 months at a time,”said Sartin.

Rives and Sartin agree, the true consequences of not paying support fall on the child.

“The single parent is definitely put in a bind, financially. They are having to bare the total cost and burden of raising that child,”said Rives.

” So, we want to make sure number 1, they have food, clothing, make sure that’s provided for and a house over head. To be able to do that financially they have to deal with that,”said Sartin.

Rives says the 14th Chancery Court District handles 800 cases of child support annually.