BOYCOTT Michigan!
Abolish Michigan’s criminal/felony child support laws!
A National plea goes out to Boycott Michigan Business (see list below)as an effort is under way to stop Michigan from prosecuting its citizens with Criminal felony’s convictions for child support.
The State of Michigan is convicting its citizens with felony, child support charges and sending them to prison for up to 4-years at the expense of taxpayers. The majority of these people are non-violent, low income citizens who can’t afford attorneys. Some have no other criminal history. Some are Veterans and most are likely un-employed. Yet Michigan continues to aggressively pursue these Felony laws, convicting those who are paying and those who cannot pay, wasting your Federal and State tax dollars. It would be much more efficient to train these low income people to become productive, responsible working class citizens, instead of sending them to prison to learn to be real criminals.
In Michigan, child support felons face additional consequences in addition to their child support obligation; cost and fines in excess of $2000.00, prejudice exclusion from certain lines of work and difficulty in finding a job in others; prohibition from obtaining certain licenses; exclusion from purchase and possession of firearms and ammunition.
The impact of these felony convictions and incarcerations on children and families is enormous since the family structure, financial responsibilities, emotional support systems, and living arrangements are greatly affected in many cases. Long term incarceration radically disrupts parent-child relationships and family networks; and restoring these relationships upon release poses a unique set of burdens on the families and Communities these prisoners come from. Some are irreparable.
These people may also enter incarceration with varying degrees of cognitive deficits that influence criminal thinking and behavior, such as pro-criminal attitudes, pro-criminal associates and impulsivity. Furthermore, while incarcerated, individuals may develop coping skills for the prison environment that are not appropriate or desired on the outside. Examples would be social withdrawal, dependence on institutional structure, and adherence to the exploitative norms of prison culture.
With that thinking in mind, Michigan felony child support laws could conceivably create criminals by means of desperation, meaning some will break the law to comply with it in attempts to meet their obligations. One county prosecutor alone, out of 83 Michigan counties convicted over 200 people with felony child support over a 4 year period. You do the math! The cost to house these people in Michigan prisons is in excess of $28,000.00 per year, per Inmate. Who pays? The taxpayers! Do not let Michigan’s Governor Jenifer Granholm and Attorney General Mike Cox fool you. Michigan’s annual Felony dispositions have increased from 25,000 in 1988 to over 50,000 today, (approximately the same time period that the felony child support laws were introduced). It’s costing tax payers more for these felony prosecutions than they are getting in return for felony child support.
Is this what we as, American citizens really want for these people? Remember, these are Parents and Grandparents to our future. Let’s not allow more problems by alienating family ties to secure a prison budget. It would be cheaper too sentence these people to community college for a 4-year degree thus promoting higher education.
Let me make it absolutely clear that child support enforcement is necessary to the well-being of family and society alike. Michigan has very effective misdemeanor laws that deal with child support collection, and very good community programs to get people back to work. Sadly these programs become ineffective once a person is convicted with felony charges as they are no longer eligible for them, leaving the person to fend on their own without access to certain job service programs or community placement programs.
Michigan families are in desperate need of your participation. Help send a message to Governor Jenifer Granholm, Attorney General Mike Cox and Michigan law makers by getting involved in this movement. Abolish all felony child support laws in Michigan. Restore family values in Michigan and stop wasting tax dollars on programs that injure families and our future as a whole.
There are three ways you can help:
1: by directly boycotting the below Michigan businesses or any business that does business with them. (Note) please be sure to inform that or those businesses of your reason and intentions for boycotting, as it is not the goal to harm the business but to promote a trickle up effect to the government level.
Ø Boycott these: Post cereals/ Kellogg’s cereals /Wal-Mart /Michigan Automobile manufacture products.
2: Write your Congressmen, Senators, and Legislators (you are their boss). Demand they stop spending your Federal and State tax dollars on Michigan’s felony child support laws and to expunge all Michigan’s criminal child support convictions. People with child support felonies in Michigan are in Great financial and legal trouble. Demand they halt pending and future prosecution of any felony child support proceedings. Ask them to pass Federal legislation for misdemeanor extradition for child support across state lines when non-custodial parents flee to avoid paying.
3: Please, by all means, forward this copy to someone you know so word can be spread to the nation’s taxpayers. These laws are crippling Michigan Families and industry and costing taxpayers millions.
Get together and get out there and Protest Michigan’s Felony child support laws, but do it legally! If you are from Michigan get out and get petitions signed to abolish these laws.
