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