A deadbeat dad's story

I usually favor studies over anecdotes, but this describes best with what divorced fathers have to deal with, especially in this recession:

He’s in jail because he couldn’t pay child support, but he couldn’t pay child support because he was unemployed … and he was unemployed because the court took his driver’s license for failure to pay child support … after he went bankrupt paying his court costs. [...] He found new work, and could make good money billing by the hour. All he had to do was drive to the appointments, and he’d be able to pay down debt and meet his child support obligations. Enter the courts — since he had fallen behind on his obligations, the court stripped him of his driver’s license. That caused him to be unable to work. He fell further behind in his payments, and now he’s in jail. He can’t get his license back until he’s employed and making payments again, but he can’t find work because he does not have a valid license and now, must declare on job applications that he’s served jail time. It’s a complete Catch-22, an utterly Kafka-esque nightmare from which there is no escape. The courts have left only one avenue open to Jeff to regain his freedom, financial independence and his children, while simultaneously making it impossible for him to do those very things.