Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC), Michigan, 2012-2021

The federal Office of Child Support Services launched the Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) demonstration to test the efficacy of incorporating procedural justice principles into child support practices as a cost-effective alternative to contempt. In this context, contempt is a legal action involving the use of civil court proceedings against noncustodial parents who have fallen behind in their child support payments. Procedural justice centers on the idea that individuals’ perception of the fairness of an administrative or legal process and how they are treated during it determines how they respond to it. In child support programs, the parents’ reaction to the process can have important implications for the outcome of their cases. The goal of the demonstration was to employ techniques that are designed to increase parents’ perception of fairness in the child support process and, as a result, to improve cooperation with child support staff, increase reliable child support payments, and reduce the ineffective use of contempt.<br>The PJAC demonstration included a supplemental quantitative analysis (also referred to as the “equity analysis”) that assessed racial, ethnic, gender, and earnings-level disparities at different points in the child support process in two states. This analysis aimed to identify whether disparities exist within the child support program, and if so, for whom. This RAF contains processed variables that were created for the equity analysis in one of the participating states, Michigan.