In Missouri at this point and time a non custodial parent can keep their children past their visitation time and the ONLY thing the custodial parent can do is pay money to a lawyer, file contempt of court charges, and wait and wait and wait for hearings that can drag on for months. Most times even though the law states that the penalty could be loss of time with the child and or even loss of custody in a joint custody case, it is usually a slap on the wrist and a no no don't do it again. Law enforcement will NOT help enforce a custody order. They simply tell you to hire and attorney. This has to change.
I started this petition because this situation affects many people I personally know and my own husband. My husband has joint custody of his children with his ex wife, he has primary residency for two of his children (they live with him). Over Mother's Day weekend visitation, his ex-wife decided she would not allow the children to return to our home. We spoke to law enforcement several times and each one said that our $10,000 court ordered custody papers were nothing more than really expensive toilet paper and to contact our lawyer. So, now WE have to spend money we don't have and take time off work we can't afford to take, just to get her forced to follow an existing judges order. Now, mind you she took the children out of school so they didn't finish this school year, and she has not allowed any communication between the children and my husband since Friday before Mothers Day. This is not only traumatizing to us but it is to the children also. Once we get them back there is a good chance this behavior will happen again and again.
If you make these civil court orders so that law enforcement MUST enforce them you may very well be saving children's lives and definitely saving them from the trauma of being kept away from the parent who is their primary care giver. There are several parents here in our county in the same situation as we are; however, they can not afford an attorney and, (just as we were) are blocked from filing contempt of court papers without an attorney. This means that the parent breaking the judges order is free to do so without any repercussions because the laws in place are only enforced if you can afford to pay to have them enforced.
The penalties need to be MUCH stronger for these types of blatant contempt of court cases. If the penalties were stronger the very 1st time it happened and law enforcement was forced to act immediately then most likely the court systems would see a lot less of these types of cases as most parents do not want to face jail time or loss of unsupervised visits with their children. It should NEVER cost a parent money to get an order (they have already spent thousands of dollars on) enforced and NO child should ever have to go through this!