Read Part One and Part Three.

In Tennessee's 17th Judicial District, there are close to 6,200 child support cases on the books and according to the District Attorney General, there are a lot of dads out there not helping their children.

As told in part one of this series on Wednesday, Mary and her daughter Jamie [not their real names] have been fighting a battle for three years in Bedford County Court to get Bobby to pay child support for his little girl, who will turn 4 in January.

But they haven't been able to get a single cent out of him despite repeated trips to court. District Attorney General Chuck Crawford said that this type of situation isn't unusual.

"It's sad to say that [Mary's] case is not as rare as we'd like it to be. If we put everybody in jail that probably deserved to be there because of child support, every county in our district would have to build another jail."

Crawford says he can't give accurate figures of how many child support cases are in Bedford County, but it is the largest county in the 17th Judicial District and accounts for a majority of them.

Chuck Crawford has been trying to get another attorney for the child support division, which is currently headed up by Mitchell Crawford, who handles cases in Bedford as well as Lincoln, Moore and Marshall counties. Mitchell and his staff handle the over 6,200 cases that move through the courts at about 20 to 30 per court day.

"We're lobbying for some extra help down here ... it's just too much for one lawyer," the District Attorney General told the Times-Gazette. The DA started his legal career in the district as a child support attorney in the late 1980s and early 1990s and he said that the case load in this district has doubled since that time.

"It was half of what it is now and it was all I could do to keep up with it," said Crawford. He said that the response he has been getting from Nashville for an extra attorney has been "encouraging."

Generally speaking, he said, most people who are ordered to receive child support do not get the amount they are ordered to and "there are a great number of people who do not receive anything."

"The DA's office, the judges and the legal system can't make anybody pay child support," Crawford said. "We can punish people who doesn't follow the court's orders and that's what we're suppose to be doing ... but with over 6,000 files and with one attorney, even at maximum load, we can't get to everybody as quickly as we would like to."

Punishment for the parents who do not pay is prioritized by how long it has been since they have paid, how much they owe, and how much money they come up with when they appear in court, the DA said. "It seems counter productive to put them in jail."

Crawford said while the $750 that Bobby owes [referring to Wednesday's story] is quite a bit of money for those who would need it, "it's not uncommon for these guys to fall thousands of dollars behind." With 20 to 30 cases per day, the child support office tries to lock up the worst offenders, the DA explained. He remembered one case when he was the child support attorney in this district where a father was $30,000 behind on payments.

Supporting a child is a process that a parent has to follow until he or she reaches the age of 18 and "they've just got to make their minds up to stick with it." But if a doctor has proven that Bobby can't pay due to a disability, "that's going to make his case very hard," Crawford stated.

"Nobody goes to jail for not paying support, they go to jail for not paying it when they have the ability to pay it. To find somebody guilty of contempt, not only do you have to show that they didn't do what they were ordered to do, but you also have to prove that had that ability to pay it."

Crawford said he believes his office can justify the case to the state for getting another attorney to take on the huge case load in the 17th district. Since taking over the office in September, Crawford said he was shocked that the case load had doubled since he served in that capacity.

Crawford said that his office and the child support division are trying their best to see that the court orders are being followed. He said if they don't get another attorney to help fill the needed slot, they may start charging the dead-beat dads with criminal non-support and that there are a lot of other options they are looking at to try to improve the situation.

"We're not ignoring it, I can promise you that."

As for the fathers who are not paying child support, Crawford believes that not only are they cheating their children, they are cheating themselves as well.

"There's a lot of satisfaction and reward in providing for and being involved with your children. So not only are the children being cheated, not only are they doing this to their own flesh and blood, but they're also cheating themselves."

In his job as district attorney, Crawford said he has seen a lot both good and bad people, but in his opinion, "they're not much sorrier than someone who won't take care of their own flesh and blood."

Friday: Moving through the system.