Kentucky has the 9th highest incarceration rate in the nation. The commonwealth is seeing an increasing prison population at the same time the national incarceration declined for the third consecutive year.
Those figures come from new data released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Daniel Cameron is the spokesperson for Smart On Crime, a group advocating for criminal justice reform. He said Kentucky’s prison population is rising because of an increase in low-level non-violent offenses.
“I think over the next year or so if there are no significant changes into how we implement our criminal justice policies here there will most likely have to be two more private prisons put online,” said Cameron.
Cameron said if changes aren’t made to reduce the rate of incarceration it could cost taxpayers $600 million over the next ten years. He said some progress has been made in Kentucky through legislation aimed at helping inmates re-enter society, and felony expungement laws.
He said the next step in reducing the prison population is reducing low-level non-violent drug offenses from a felony to a misdemeanor.
