20240626-113227-71

"Priority Area 1: Data Analysis Analyze data from the Department of Corrections (DOC), KSP, AOC and other state agencies (where appropriate and available) to quantify the number of people involved in Kentucky’s criminal justice system for DV- and IPV-related offenses, with the goal of identifying the full scale and impact of these offenses on the state’s criminal justice system and the potential for reducing prison and jail populations and improving interventions. CSG Justice Center staff will also quantify the prevalence of domestic violence by identifying the number of people on community supervision with current or historical IPV-related offenses or protective orders.  Background: Kentucky has historically struggled to consistently collect and comprehensively analyze relevant data to effectively evaluate and address the state’s DV challenges. This is especially troubling given that lifetime prevalence rates of DV in Kentucky are far higher than the national average. About 45 percent of all women and 36 percent of all men in Kentucky experience DV during their lifetime compared to the national averages of 37 percent and 31 percent, respectively. Additionally, the Department of Corrections (DOC) is unable to adequately quantify how many people are incarcerated or on community supervision with a domestic violence-related history, which creates a missed opportunity for the state to comprehensively address the DV related population with programs and intervention. Because the DOC is contracted to handle misdemeanor probation in Jefferson County, the largest county in the state, additional information will be available for the analysis.  Update: CSG Justice Center staff continued cleaning and analyzing the data provided by KSP in March. Analysis of the DOC incarceration and supervision data files has reached the quality assurance stage, where findings are in the process of being validated with publicly available reports and with state partners. After meeting with state partners at the AOC, CSG Justice Center staff determined that further refining of the AOC data analysis will be required to obtain more accurate sentence dispositions. There have been ongoing discussions with the state CJ-SAC to refine the data definitions and time frame for the presentations. Priority Area 2: Assess Community Supervision  Conduct a qualitative assessment of community supervision systems in Kentucky, with a focus on DV caseloads. CSG Justice Center staff will assess the effectiveness of current policies and practices in reducing revocations and promoting successful and safe community reintegration. CSG Justice Center staff will conduct interviews and focus groups with DOC leadership, probation district supervisors, probation and parole officers, and clients on supervision with a DV-related charge (if available) to understand and assess the implementation practices for evidence-based supervision.  Background: Kentucky had the 14th-highest rate of people on probation or parole supervision in the country in 2019, with nearly 64,000 people under state or local supervision. Before the start of the pandemic, over 45 percent of the prison population was incarcerated due to supervision violations, which was the seventh highest percentage in the country at that time. Resources for people who are incarcerated or supervised in different parts of the system vary and may not support ensuring people receive the treatment and programming they need to reduce recidivism. Additionally, while the commonwealth is currently unable to identify the exact number of people on community supervision with underlying DV or IPV offenses, stakeholders in Kentucky report that people cycle through probationâ€"especially misdemeanor probationâ€"for DV offenses, which could be another driver of their prison and jail population growth. The DOC is contracted with Jefferson County, which includes Louisville, to manage those on probation with misdemeanor offenses, which could provide an estimate of the total misdemeanor population with an underlying DV or IPV offense and how that population fares on supervision. Update: CSG Justice Center staff spoke with the Probation Unit Supervisor for Fayette County to learn more about the county’s probation process. The supervisor confirmed that Fayette County is one of the few counties in Kentucky handling its own probation, and that most counties utilize private probation companies. The office is relatively small with a high caseload, and it seemed that their officers were tied to individual district court judges. Additionally, staff learned that there was not an association or group to bring county probation offices together for training purposes or to advocate for additional resources. Without a single association, it may prove difficult to identify additional counties that handle probation. Therefore, staff began reaching out to private probation companies to continue planning for the probation assessments. Additionally, staff continued to develop a future presentation for the working group explaining our findings from the earlier probation and parole assessments.  Priority Area 3: Assess Responses and Interventions to Those Who Commit Domestic Violence Conduct a qualitative assessment of the efficacy, accessibility, and availability of services, treatment, and programming aimed at those who commit domestic violence, with an emphasis on Batterer Intervention Programs (BIP), to better understand if the interventions for the incarcerated and supervised populations reduce supervision failure and repeated criminal behavior. CSG Justice Center staff will evaluate the use of evidence-based programming, funding for such programming, the use of risk and need assessments, and reentry processes. This assessment work will inform evidence-based solutions for the commonwealth’s DV population.   Background: Kentucky stakeholders report that it is common for people convicted of IPV-related offenses to be sentenced to misdemeanor probation multiple times where they receive little support or services beyond the requirement to participate in a Batterers Intervention Program (BIP). However, stakeholders suspect that BIP may not be effective and have expressed interest in assessing these programs and developing recommendations for improvements. DOC leaders have explained that when a person is incarcerated, the DOC does not receive background information on that person’s either victim or perpetrator history with DV or IPV (beyond criminal convictions), which inhibits their ability to adequately manage and serve that person. Further, while DOC provides cognitive behavioral therapy and anger management, BIP is not available, which may indicate key areas of missing programming for people with criminal histories that include DV and IPV. Resources for people who are incarcerated or supervised in different parts of the system vary and may not support ensuring people receive the treatment and programming they need to reduce recidivism.  Update: CSG Justice Center staff began developing slides for future presentations to explain the findings from our BIP focus groups in February. Additionally, staff reached out to the director of the Kentucky Jailers’ Association to learn more about the relationship between DOC and the jails given that a large portion of the sentenced felony population is housed in county jails. These discussions would include learning more about which programs are available for those who commit domestic violence. Priority Area 4: General Stakeholder Engagement Connect with criminal justice stakeholders (law enforcement, judges, defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, corrections staff, lawmakers, victim and their advocates, and community-based organizations) across the commonwealth to fully understand the DV challenges and how it impacts the criminal justice system at different points and in different regions of the state. CSG Justice Center staff plan to engage with a diverse array of stakeholders at every step of the project to ensure proper context to CSG Justice Center’s data analysis, qualitative assessments, and policy recommendations. Background: Despite various local and regional efforts to address DV, it continues to be an issue that permeates the commonwealth. Louisville has a Criminal Justice Commission Domestic Violence Coordinating Council that meets to discuss domestic violence and has published reports on addressing domestic violence. Lexington created a Special Victims Unit to support survivors of domestic violence. The Attorney General’s Office created the Domestic Violence Resource Prosecutor position under the Prosecutor’s Advisory Council. CSG Justice Center staff can connect these efforts from across the commonwealth, help break down silos, and guide possible policy discussions.  Update: In March, CSG Justice Center staff worked diligently to finalize the membership of the Domestic Violence Working Group and alert members to their roles and responsibilities. Generally, members were excited and enthusiastic about the project, offering their support to provide staff with information and connections to experts for future outreach. After learning that the legislature opted out of naming a legislative co-chair to the JRI working group, CSG Justice Center staff worked closely with the executive branch and working group members to find a path forward for launching the project. The executive co-chair requested that we wait to launch the project until a legislative co-chair is appointed, to ensure legislative engagement with the process. CSG Justice Center staff reached out to the executive director of the Legislative Research Commission and the legislative working group members to ask if they could prompt legislative leadership to appoint a co-chair. Through those conversations, staff are hopeful that the co-chair may eventually be appointed and are working with the executive co-chair on how we can begin presenting information in the meantime. Additionally, representatives of the Domestic Violence Prevention Coordinating Council out of Louisville reached out requesting that staff provide an update on the project and our preliminary findings. The group’s next meeting is at the end of April. Priority Area 5: Assessing the need for broader criminal justice reforms Build momentum for fostering support for another JRI project focused on the broader criminal justice challenges. CSG Justice Center staff believe that the initial DV- and IPV-focused analyses will lay the foundation for the commonwealth’s understanding of larger criminal justice challenges and trends and motivate state leaders to request additional and broader analyses through another round of JRI.  Background: Kentucky jail and prison populations are increasing. From 2000 to 2018, the state’s prison population increased 13 percent, with a prison incarceration rate of 428.9 per 100,000 adult residents in 2018.iv During the same period, the jail population increased by 70 percent, and the jail incarceration rate reached 792.7 per 100,000 adult residents in 2018.v Following the pandemic, the commonwealth saw a 24 percent decrease in the number of individuals incarcerated by DOC in prisons, jails, and other state-funded facilities. Starting in 2022, the number of incarcerated people began to rise again.vi From 2021 to 2022, the DOC population incarcerated in jails increased 12 percent. In addition to housing people who are sentenced to incarceration for misdemeanor offenses, local jails in Kentucky house nearly half of people sentenced to incarceration for felony offenses. Without relying on local jails, Kentucky would be unable to house the total prison population in existing state facilities.   Update: CSG Justice Center staff met with representatives from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy to learn more about the appetite for broader criminal justice reform in Kentucky."