Authorities Using Pizza to Locate Deadbeat Parents

Some cities are taking a new approach to get deadbeat parents to pay their child support. It started in Butler County Ohio, just north of Cincinnati according to an interview by the Associated Press. Cynthia Brown, executive director of the Butler County Child Enforcement Agency, had an idea one day while ordering a pizza.

"It suddenly dawned on me that most people running from the law don't eat out, they order pizza," Brown told the Associated Press.

Brown working with local pizza parlors having fliers attached to their take out orders with the names and pictures of the deadbeat parents. Three area pizza establishments are placing the fliers on their take orders and one person has been arrested due to this program.

Every state and even counties takes their own approach to retrieving the back child support. According to Kay Cullen, a spokeswoman for the National Child Support Enforcement Association some states have subpoenaed cellular phone companies to supply the known address of dead beat parents and Kern County, CA even seized dead beat parent's vehicles and auctions them off with proceeds going to the children.

Other towns have now followed in the footsteps of Butler County. Spotsylvania, Virginia is now placing fliers with the names and amounts owed by the deadbeat parents according to NBC 4 news. Vinny's pizza establishment has been placing these fliers on their pizzas for the past week.

Vinny Vatale, of Vinny's Pizza said in an interview with NBC 4, "The local sheriff's department approached me and asked if we would be willing to do it and we said sure, why not."

Leslie Sorkey of Child Support Link is the woman who brought the idea to Spotsylvania County. She got the idea from Butler County, Ohio.

Sorkey told news 4 reporter, Derrick Ward, "We just improved on it and expanded it encompass our crime solvers."

Spotsylvania County Crime Solvers are offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of deadbeat parents wanted for not paying child support according to NBC 4.

Customers don't seem to mind the advertisement. In an interview with NBC 4 Debbie Calhoun said, "At first I thought it was a joke. I was like, are they playing a trick on me, but I think it may be a good idea."

Maury Beaulier, an attorney who specializes in fathers rights called the program "Horrible" in an interview with the Associated Press. He went on to say, "It's just a way of shaming people." Beaulier went on to comment, many circumstances can cause people to get behind in support payments, but that doesn't make them deadbeats.

Look for the fliers to come to a city near you. With child support agencies collecting $23 billion in backed child support for 17.2 million children in 2005 alone there is definitely a need for change in our approach to provide for our children. Pizza delivery fliers may just be the answer.

( NBC 4, Pizza Parlor Posts Deadbeat Parents On Boxes, http://www.nbc4.com/news/13336444/detail.html?rss=dc&psp=news#, Lisa Cornwell, Associated Press Deadbeats' faces slapped on pizza boxes, http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2007-03-25-pizza-deadbeat_N.htm?csp=34)

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