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Apr 8, 2024
3 min

Research Supports Releasing Certain Inmates in Response to COVID-19

The coronavirus has produced plenty of unprecedented changes, including a near nation-wide lockdown. In addition to closing restaurants, schools, and most businesses, there has been a call to release inmates from prisons and jails. The close proximity of offenders and staff paired with lackluster cleanliness and subpar medical assistance have led to concerns that jails and prisons are perfect environments for COVID-19 to spread rapidly. COVID-19, the specific virus that has c

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Dec 16, 2023
3 min

Fair Chance Act offers opportunity for ex-offenders

The Fair Chance Act has passed in the House as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. The bill codifies President Obama’s 2015 “ban the box” rule, which removed the criminal history question from job applications. The Fair Chance Act would apply to job applications in the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of federal government and extend to individual contractors working on government grants within private companies. It is important to note that t

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Nov 18, 2023
3 min

Nearly half of all probation and parole sentences in Kentucky result in incarceration

Kentucky’s expanding prison population has been a source of conversation and policy debate for years now, but probation and parole—two of the largest channels into the prison system—have largely been absent from these conversations. Kentucky’s recidivism rate, the rate at which people return to prison, was 32.2 percent in 2016. That equates to about 6,000 potential recidivists from the 18,640 released prisoners in 2016. During the same year, 52 percent of people on parole, o

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Oct 1, 2023
2 min

New Data Shows Large Number of Pretrial Detainees are Non-Violent, Low Risk

The Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) has examined a snapshot of data from November 1 of last year and found that a majority of pretrial detainees were non-violent offenders. The new analysis looks at a snapshot of those detained pretrial on November 1, 2018. On that date 10,010 defendants were detained awaiting trial. Of those 10,010, over two-thirds, were eligible for release – the reaming third had some type of hold making them ineligible for release, usua

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Mar 4, 2024
1 min

Decreases in Homicide Continue to Correspond with Increases in LMPD Self-Initiated Policing

Eight months ago, after meaningful drops in homicides and shootings in Louisville, we first examined the role that self-initiated policing might play in reducing that violence. Self-initiated police activity typically includes things like pedestrian checks, building checks, occupied and unoccupied vehicle checks, foot patrols, and problem solving. One study of a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department experiment found that hot spots that received self-initiated enforcement e

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Nov 26, 2023
2 min

Some Counties Release less than 10% of Defendants Pretrial, New Study Shows.

In December of 2017, the Boyle and Mercer County Fiscal Courts, commissioned a report on what improvements they could make to their criminal justice system. Boyle and Mercer county share a jail, the Boyle County Detention Center, and at the time of the commissioned report, it’s population was 181% of design capacity. The report, produced by consultants Brandstetter Carroll Inc. was released on November 8 of this year and highlights a number of proposed improvements to the loc

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Jul 24, 2024
3 min

Drop in Homicides and Shootings a Step in Right Direction

As cities like Baltimore and St. Louis continue to struggle with rising homicides and non-fatal shootings, the release of the LMPD UCR Report for January-June 2018 shows Louisville is making progress. Though numbers remain above historic averages, January-June 2018 has had the fewest homicides since 2015 and fewest shootings since 2014. Additionally, Louisville’s three most violent police divisions - the First, Second, and Fourth - have all seen significant decreases in homic

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Apr 15, 2024
2 min

Enough is Enough

Louisville’s first football game last season was a dazzling performance by Lamar Jackson. I was lucky enough to be there in person. Sure, Charlotte was not a high quality opponent but it was clear that the young man in the pocket was doing something special. At halftime, Lamar had eight touchdowns. That’s right, eight. Over the course of the first half, the person next to me became a cheering partner. I was sitting in a section with several coaches wives and former players, b

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Mar 17, 2024
2 min

Does Permit-less Carry Lead to Violent Crime Increases?

Since first introduced in 1997 by preeminent gun researcher John Lott and Professor David Mustard, the idea “more guns, less crime” has caused a great deal of academic debate. The research falls primarily into two camps, those who believe that increases in privately carried handguns decrease murder rates and violent crime, and those who believe there is no relationship or insufficient data to draw and conclusion between the number of firearms carried and violent crime or homi

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Feb 28, 2024
3 min

Could Cincinnati's CIRV Program Help Louisville Address Gang Violence?

In 2015, the US experienced a 3.9% increase in violent crime nation-wide, and while national data isn’t yet available for all of 2016, the FBI’s mid-year report indicates that violent crime was up 5.3% from the first half of 2015. According to a New York Magazine from a late last year, "The murder rate in the United States rose by 10 percent last year, while the total number of murders increased by nearly 11 percent — the highest single-year increase since 1971." In contrast,

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Feb 21, 2024
5 min

Senate Bill 120: What’s In, What’s Out, and What Does It All Mean?

There have been many questions and concerns, and a great deal of confusion surrounding Senate Bill 120. This bill is corrections oriented, and focuses on improving prisoner re-entry and reducing recidivism rates. Simply put, if successful, less recidivism means less victims and less strain on law enforcement. What’s in the Bill? Removal of Economic Barriers to Re-entry: Currently, felons, no matter what the felony is, how long ago it was, or what events have occurred since, a

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Feb 14, 2024
2 min

Lifting Mandatory Denial for Felons to Apply for Occupational License is Great Step to Improve Workf

Senator Westerfield has filed Senate Bill 120, a culmination of the first efforts of Gov. Bevin’s Criminal Justice Policy Assessment Council. A large portion of the bill is focused on reducing recidivism and helping inmates who have paid their debts transition back into society. One of the best predictors of future criminality is employment after release. A study by the Manhattan Institute found that in New York, “statewide rates of recidivism range from about 31 to 70 percen

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Feb 8, 2024
3 min

Survey Results Illustrate a Divided Louisville

Do the people of Louisville love their city? New survey results suggest that this answer is not so easy to come by. While overall it seems that Louisvillians enjoy their home, closer inspection of the results paints a clear division between East and West. The ETC Institute, on behalf of the Louisville city planners, provided preliminary data to the Courier Journal, last week, from their new study focusing on citizens’ feelings of Louisville. Aiming to get a better assessment

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Feb 3, 2024
2 min

Five Bills We Are Watching in the General Assembly

After a packed first week followed by several weeks off, the Kentucky General Assembly will return on Tuesday for the remainder of this short, odd year session. Of the bills that have been filled, or are going to be filled, these are five that we are watching*. 1) HB 103- Charter School Legislation: Several interesting and important debates will unfold over the remainder of this session, but none are more intriguing than the charter school legislation. The number of authorize

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