THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 19, 1996 TAG: 9602190026
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 123 lines
Coming soon to a computer near you: Electronic wanted posters for deadbeat parents.
Virginia's child-support enforcers are planning to post names and descriptions of neglectful fathers and mothers on the World Wide Web - the graphical, point-and-click area of the global computer network called the Internet.
Following the lead of Massachusetts, which began a similar program last year, Virginia could begin using the Internet to publicize people delinquent in their child-support payments ``in the next few months,'' said Joseph S. Crane, interim director of Virginia's Division of Child Support Enforcement.
``The technology is there - we might as well take advantage,'' Crane said.
Child-support officials in Virginia, Massachusetts and other states view the Internet as just another public forum in which to seek tips on the whereabouts of delinquent parents. The goal is simple: to force parents to fulfill at least their financial obligations to children who don't live with them.According to statistics from the division, about one in four Virginia children receives or is due to receive support from non-custodial parents.
Enforcement of child-support orders is a big weapon in welfare reform, since many people on the public dole - mostly mothers - are forced there because the other parent isn't contributing his or her share.
Nationwide, nine out of 10 children in families receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children - the main welfare component - are entitled to child support they're not receiving, according to the Association for Children for the Enforcement of Support, a child-support advocacy organization with headquarters in Toledo, Ohio. ACES' founder herself turned to welfare briefly when child support was not paid.
In recent years, Virginia's Division of Child Support Enforcement has issued seven or eight ``Ten Most Wanted'' lists of delinquent parents the agency was unable to locate, publicizing the names with news conferences but not much else. No list has been issued in about a year, although a new one will be released soon.
One-third of Virginia's child-support caseload involves out-of-state parents, which makes an international network like the Internet potentially more useful than releasing most-wanted lists locally.
Crane said a number of child-support advocacy groups have suggested using the Internet. The World Wide Web postings also were one of the recommendations by an advisory committee that met for 15 months to consider ways to increase child-support collections.
The division also plans to disseminate other information and news on the Internet, Crane said.
``We're working on it,'' Crane said last week. ``The `Ten Most Wanted' (list) can be useful with people in other states seeing this . . . The whole reason we do this is to get as much publicity as possible.''
Massachusetts began chasing child-support offenders on the Web last June.
The Massachusetts Department of Revenue's Child Support Enforcement Division had been hanging wanted posters in subways and post offices and placing advertisements in local newspapers to track down deadbeat parents, and it was looking for additional avenues, said Allison G. Green, a division spokeswoman.
``The reason we put them on (the Web) was our posters were so effective, and we found the public was so interested and effective in helping us catch'' deadbeat parents, Green said. ``A poster can only hold so many, and the Web is infinite, so . . . .''
The Massachusetts Web site contains a form that computer users can fill out anonymously and send to authorities with tips on the whereabouts of sought-after parents.
So far, though the site has been visited 12,000 times, Web surfers haven't provided any information that's helped locate deadbeat parents.
On the site, computer browsers can click on small pictures of those sought to get a larger photo and biographical information, including descriptions, aliases and places where they were last seen.
First on Massachusetts' current list is a 37-year-old nurse's aide who has missed 233 weekly payments of $75 toward the support of her two children, ages 11 and 13. One of those whose picture is marked ``FOUND'' in red letters is a 48-year-old roofer-carpenter who owed $31,000 in support to his 12-year-old daughter; he was arrested in Spokane, Wash.
``It's kind of experimental,'' Green said. ``We don't know if it's going to revolutionize the way we track cases. We don't know. We hope it does.''
A New Mexico computer businessman hopes it does, too. David E. Farrell, owner of Results!, also known as MostWanted.com, has called most states offering to donate his expertise in setting up Web sites for law and child-support enforcement. About half the states have at least some kind of ``wanted-list'' posting on the Internet; New Mexico is one other state, he said, that has a child-support site.
Farrell said people would be surprised at how many users simply clicking around on the Web land on the child-support sites, linked through key words to various police and fugitive sites, which are popular.
Crane said the state will have to grapple with confidentiality problems - like Massachusetts, Virginia must get permission from families to release information about their child-support cases.
Still, with each Virginia caseworker handling an average of 1,000 cases, Crane's agency figures any help is worth the effort. MEMO: The address for Massachusetts' child-support Web site:
http://www.mst.oa.net/ten.html
ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Web Page
YOUNG VICTIMS
Nationwide: Nine out of 10 children in families receiving Aid to
Families with Dependent Children - the main welfare component - are
entitled to child support they're not receiving, according to the
Association for Children for the Enforcement of Support.
In Virginia: One-third of the state's child-support caseload
involves out-of-state parents, which makes an international network
like the Internet potentially more useful than releasing most-wanted
lists locally.
KEYWORDS: INTERNET CHILD SUPPORT by CNB