F&F: Shocking Data on Incarceration of Fathers: New Report Suggests Gender Bias

Article here. Excerpt:

'A new report concludes that between 95% and 98.5% of all incarcerations in Massachusetts sentenced from the Massachusetts Probate and Family Courts from 2001 through 2011 have been men. Moreover, this percentage may be increasing, with an average of 94.5% from 2001 to 2008, and 96.2% from 2009 through 2011. It is likely that most of these incarcerations are for incomplete payment of child support.

Further analysis suggests that women who fail to pay all of their child support are incarcerated only one-eighth as often as men with similar violations. Several possible explanations of these results other than gender bias are unsupported by the data, strengthening the view that gender bias against fathers is a major factor in the family courts.
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... The latest national data from the US Census Bureau shows that mothers are the custodial parents in 82% of cases, and fathers in only 18% (which may in itself reflect gender bias). (see Table below.) Even so, if incomplete payment of child support occurred in exact proportion to custodial status, then we would expect mothers to account for 18% of incarcerations, not 1.5% to 5%.'