dcl9785.htm

DCL-97-85

December 1, 1997

TO ALL STATE IV-D DIRECTORS

Dear Colleague:

I am pleased to announce that we have completed a series of three Child Support Enforcement Symposiums for Law Enforcement Executives. As you know, one of our primary goals is to establish a strong and effective partnership with our nation’s law enforcement community. This includes municipal, county and state police as well as sheriffs and federal law enforcement agencies.

In April of this year a new law enforcement coordinator position was authorized and Chief Donald A. Deering was hired to fill it. Since Section 454 (7) of the Social Security Act permits each child support state plan to provide for cooperative agreements with courts and law enforcement officials, the chief’s first step was to develop an initiative that would attract key law enforcement leaders and convince them of their important role in enforcing child support orders.

As a result, three symposiums were developed and with the help of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, The Police Executive Research Forum and The National Sheriffs Association, a number of prominent chiefs and sheriffs from across the country were identified as candidates for our sessions. Over 100 of these top level executives responded, representing a broad spectrum of agencies from across the United States.

Now that the symposiums are completed, we are beginning to see the results of our efforts. Law enforcement executives from Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Washington State are just a few examples of those who have expressed strong interest in forming partnerships with the States to help locate absent parents and boost collections. During our meetings we discussed a number of ways that law enforcement could help the states improve their child support enforcement efforts, particularly when it comes to closing those hard to resolve cases. Locate, investigation, service of process and warrants, training, mentoring, community outreach and leadership were some of the most valuable skills and assets identified by the participants.

There are over 700,000 police, sheriffs and federal law enforcement officers in the United States. If we are successful in garnering just 20% of this pool, we will more than double the number of individuals working on child support enforcement issues. Now that the first step has been taken in cultivating this valuable resource, I would ask you to close the circle by becoming a pro-active partner in this new and most important collaboration. I have indicated to these law enforcement executives that we are committed to developing formal agreements through our state partners which will appropriately reimburse them for a portion of their efforts. Current partnerships as evidenced in Maryland, New Jersey and a number of other states serve as good examples of these formal collaborations.

Chief Deering and Captain Terry Justin will be spending a significant portion of their time helping you develop and nurture these new efforts. If you would like more information about law enforcement agreements, contact Chief Donald Deering at (202) 401-1063; fax: (202) 205-4882 or Captain Terry Justin at (202) 401-5522.

Sincerely,

David Gray Ross
Deputy Director
Office of Child Support Enforcement

cc:
ACF Regional Administrators
ACF Assistant Regional Administrators
CSE Regional Program Managers

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