Kentucky Political News Headlines

Monday, June 10, 2019

BR Subcommittee on Justice - June

BR Subcommittee on Justice  met and heard testimony on the implementation of SB 120. Presenting were Justice Cabinet Secretary John Tilley and various cabinet officials. 

Tilley shared that he had inherited a Cabinet with deferred maintenance and cited personnel and pay issues:  Juvenile Justice has a 124% turnover in front line personnel and likewise with KSP and the state Crime Lab. 

Sec. Tilley said that SB 120 has provided the Department of Corrections with some tools to ease reentry and that KY is trending in the right direction.  He said it is known that recidivism is decreased by meaningful employment post release and lauded faith based and business community efforts on re-entry.   

Sec. Tilley discussed SB 120's provisions on discretionary detention in P&P, stating that technical revocations are a significant recidivism driver, and referred to a $27 M. savings from discretionary detention in lieu of revocation.  

Sec. Tilley also generally described mandatory re-entry supervision for those who would not otherwise be paroled i.e. timed out, MRS's idea is to assist these persons with re-entry and DOC's re-entry drug program which he termed DOC's version of drug court, pilot program.

Sec. Tilley referred to the day reporting program in Louisville Metro that he said is a means to have routine contact with individuals without full incarceration.  He said that this is not a current DOC program, but could be a tool for jails and to avoid pretrial detention.

He described SB 120's prison industry enhancement and said that DOC is working with private industry to develop the program.

County Jail Re-entry Centers were referred to with Sec. Tilley saying that SB 120 gave the legal authority for re-entry centers, saying that there were none yet due to lack of resources.  He added that an announcement may be coming soon on this subject.

Sec. Tilley concluded his remarks saying that he is working with Sen. Higdon on jail performance based funding.