"It's two separate systems that … keep you under a thumb": dual debt in the child support and criminal legal systems.

People simultaneously entangled in multiple state systems are often subject to contradictory legal mandates that can foster distrust and incentivize system avoidance. This study focuses on those indebted to both the child support system and the criminal legal system, a situation we describe as . We ask whether and how the imposition of legal debts with punitive surveillance and collections mechanisms fosters alienation in the form of legal cynicism and estrangement, which we refer to jointly as legal anomie.