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Poland mulls bracelets for skipping child support

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Warsaw: Thousands of people in Poland sentenced for failure to pay child support could end up being fitted with electronic monitoring bracelets, the deputy justice minister said on Monday.


Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government has drafted legislation that would make parents who fail to pay child support for three months liable to prison.


The existing law calls for up to two years in prison for anyone who “persistently fails to pay” child support, without specifying how long qualifies as “persistent”.


With Poland’s national debt registry showing that 305,000 people — mostly fathers — are lagging behind with payments, the plan has raised concerns about potential prison overcrowding.


Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik told Polish television that electronic bracelets could be a cost-effective solution: fitting a bracelet costs 80 euros ($86) a month, compared with ten times as much per prisoner over the same period.


Wojcik also said the bracelets would let the authorities find out if debtors were working but not disclosing their earnings.


Currently, more than half of the non-payment cases brought before Polish courts are dismissed, since defendants have to pay only a small fraction of the total child support debt to not be considered persistently delinquent.


Statistics show there were 3,700 people imprisoned for non-payment of child support in 2016, while another 1,600 were sentenced but had not yet served their terms.


— AFP


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