If Kentucky were its own country, the commonwealth would have a higher incarceration rate than any nation except El Salvador, a new report from the Prison Policy Initiative shows.
The report, released Tuesday, shows Kentucky has an incarceration rate of 898 people per 100,000 in state prisons, local jails and other systems of confinement.
As of the week of June 6, Kentucky has 32,334 people in custody throughout state, federal, and county facilities, according to state data.
While El Salvador has an incarceration rate higher than any U.S. state, nine states have the next-highest incarceration rates in the world, followed by Cuba.
Kentucky ranks seventh on the global list, just trailing behind Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Alabama.
Overall, 25 U.S. states and three nations — El Salvador, Cuba, and Rwanda — have incarceration rates even higher than the national incarceration rate of the United States, according to the report.
Some of the countries listed with lower incarceration rates than the states are dictatorial, which should highlight the extremely adverse the United State’s policies are, said Mike Wessler, the communications director of the PPI.
The Prison Policy Initiative is a non-profit, non-partisan group which produces cutting edge research to show the broader harm of mass criminalization, and spark advocacy campaigns.
Where KY has ranked in previous years
The group’s report, States of Incarceration: The Global Context, has published four times since the first edition in 2014. Kentucky has ranked in the top 10 for the past three editions.
Kentucky again ranked seventh in the 2021 , according to the group’s data. That year, the state had an incarceration rate of 930 per 100,000 people.
In 2018, report findings showed Kentucky ranked ninth with a rate of 869 per 100,000. The state ranked 14th in 2016.
Kentucky’s total correctional population in 2022 was 95,479 people, according to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. This includes 32,351 incarcerated people and another 63,128 who were on supervision, like probation or parole.
The data tracker on UnlockKY shows a nearly 400% growth in Kentucky’s correctional population since 1985, when just under 20,000 people were incarcerated or on supervision, KCEP reported.
UnlockKY is a group that aims to understand the effects of mass incarceration on individuals and communities in the state.
That number soared in the next several decades, reaching over 90,000 people in 2007 where it has remained ever since.
How can the numbers change?
Like Kentucky, many of the other states continuously topping the reports’ charts are located in the South.
“Lawmakers in the South, they are slower to recognize that the 40 year experiment with mass incarceration is a massive failure,” Wessler told the Herald-Leader.
“Some fail to realize that when you lock people up, it doesn’t make communities safer,” he said. “The southern states continue to have the highest crime rates. And if you were locking up people committing crimes, you would think the inverse would happen.”
Even states with the more progressive measures, like Massachusetts, the state with the lowest incarceration rate, is equal to Iran, Colombia and all the founding NATO nations.
“In fact, many of the countries that rank alongside the least punitive U.S. states, such as Turkmenistan, Belarus, Russia, and Azerbaijan, have authoritarian or dictatorial governments, but the U.S. — the land of the free — still incarcerates more people per capita than almost every other nation,” the report said.
It doesn’t seem like the number will slow down anytime soon, despite push for mental health and substance use reforms, law enforcement pay increases, and growing concerns regarding overcrowding jails.
Wessler said steps need to be taken to move away from draconian, punitive measures. One suggestion to lower rates was to implement laws which would reduce the number of unconvicted people waiting behind bars and unable to post bail.
During the 2024 General Assembly, the Republican-controlled Kentucky legislature passed House Bill 5, a sweeping crime bill, over the veto of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. Opponents of the bill say it will cause incarceration rates and the associated costs to soar and unfairly penalizes the homeless , while supporters say it is necessary to address violent crime.
The new law takes effect July 15.
“That doesn’t make policy sense or moral sense,” Wessler said. “Fining (people experiencing homeless) isn’t going to help them find a home, or help them not live on the street. It is going to make it worse.
“The situation will get worse.”
Most Popular
Comments / 0