Whitney's Weekly Update - Week 8

​As the Senate eagerly awaits a budget proposal from the House of Representatives, we have been busy passing bills both out of committee and out of the Senate to send to our House colleagues during the eighth week of the 2016 Kentucky General Assembly.

Senate Bill (SB) 43 was one of the most prominent bills to pass this week. SB 43 would create death benefits for Emergency Medical Service personnel killed in the line of duty. This bill was introduced in honor of John Mackey, a paramedic from Jessamine County who was killed in the line of duty last year. We were honored to have his wife, Janine Mackey, join us as we passed this bill through committee and off the Senate floor.

We passed a similar bill in SB 195, which would create death benefits for firefighters who died from cancer presumed to be caused from their duties. Kentuckians enjoy the heroism and service of fire and emergency responders everyday. My family has been touched by their work as I'm sure yours has been, directly or indirectly. We owe those who serve our communities in such dangerous ways. Firefighters are significantly more likely to develop some forms of cancer. Many assume the lung cancer is the primary kind, but it's actually more prone to appear in other organs. The plastics, chemicals and soot, either from the fire and burning materials or the suits they wear, remains in their boots and their gear and is absorbed through the skin. Senators Morgan McGarvey (D, Louisville) and Albert Robinson (R, London) are responsible for bringing this to the Senate for a vote.

SB 14 is a bill that received a great deal of attention. Sponsored by Sen. Paul Hornback (R, Shelbyville), SB14 would prohibit the ancillary activities involved in dog fighting. Every state has outlawed fighting, but Kentucky didn't have an express prohibition on training, breeding or related activities for the purpose of dog fighting. As a result, Kentucky had become something of a safe harbor for dog fighting enthusiasts. Importantly, the bill specifically protects the lawful uses of dogs in agriculture and hunting. Hopefully the bill will see passage in the House and close the door on this behavior in the bluegrass. I extend a big thanks to the advocate community for working on this effort for the last several years, a testament to the power of the people in government!

In the coming weeks I want to highlight an issue that continues to be debated and discussed: felony expungement. There are valid arguments in favor of creating such a mechanism and in favor of not doing so. I and others are making an effort to chart a middle course if we can find one.

In the meantime, other work continues. I have bills still to be filed related to the disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile justice system, and we continue to monitor the implementation of 2014's SB200 juvenile justice reform. I'm excited to share that another state has taken the next step to improve its juvenile justice system using Kentucky and other states as models. The Kansas Senate passed SB367 by a 38-2 vote earlier this week, and the bill now heads to the Kansas House. Similar to Kentucky, Kansas found it was wasting precious resources and even worse, having an adverse impact on the lives of children. I am grateful that Kentucky has helped lead the nation on a critical reform movement making a generational difference for the better in the lives of children in the Commonwealth and beyond.

If you have any questions or comments about these issues or any other public policy issue, please call my Capitol Office at (502) 564-8100 or email me. Follow me on Twitter or Facebook for regular posts and updates during the week!

Early Numbers Are In

Over the course of 2012 and 2013, we studied Kentucky's Juvenile Justice system.  Our findings were not good, and the recommendations for legislative action were big.  What followed was the most comprehensive overhaul to the system in nearly 30 years, Senate Bill 200.  This overhaul, passed in 2014 and fully in effect as of July 2015, has become a national model for other states to follow.  States from West Virginia to Kansas and South Dakota have looked at what Kentucky has done.  The bottom line is that we were holding kids who hadn't committed any crimes with kids who had committed some of the worst crimes there are, and we were detain low-level offenders out of home when a community based approach is both far more effective for kids and their families, and far less expensive to the taxpayer.  We weren't always assessing the needs of the child in a meaningful way.  Senate Bill 200 required a risk and needs assessment early in the process and brought that community based approach to life.

So far, the numbers from the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), and the Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) look promising.  While it's too early to claim broad success, we are, for the moment, trending in that direction:

FAIR (Family Accountability Intervention and Response) Teams were created in SB200 as multi-disciplinary teams of local professionals to review cases that otherwise would have ended up in court.  The FAIR Team's goal is to plug kids in to community based resources and programs to address their needs.  A teacher gave me the example of a young student who was punished for being disobedient and insubordinate.  The child was acting out of a mental health diagnosis that the system was unaware had been made.  This kid was punished when all he needed was mental health care.

Likewise there are kids who are merely truant (which is a behavior that should definitely be corrected with the child and/or the parents involved) who would share a cell behind razor wire two hours from home with the kids who sold drugs or committed violent crimes.  This is incredibly harmful to the kids involved, making their situations worse.  Adding insult to injury, holding kids out of home is incredibly expensive.  Adults held in state prison cost the taxpayer about $22k a year.  Juvenile detention beds cost about $100k a year.

Now that FAIR Teams are meeting across the state we can see that nearly half of the cases that would’ve gone to court are now being resolved through the FAIR Team process - making an enormous positive impact on the lives of these children and their families, while avoiding the enormous drain on the taxpayer with court dockets and detention.

41% of kids that would've gone to court were successfully diverted out of the system, making a huge difference in their lives and sparing the high cost of increased court dockets and detention centers.