Kentucky Mandatory Reentry Supervision

Overview

In 2011, the Kentucky Legislature passed the Public Safety and Offender Accountability Act (HB 463), which sought to earn a greater public safety return on the state’s corrections spending. The historic measure included a mandatory reentry supervision policy that required every inmate to undergo a period of post-release supervision so that no inmates would be released from prison to communities without monitoring or support.

This brief summarizes recent state corrections data and an independent evaluation of the policy commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts, which found that mandatory reentry supervision:

• improved public safety by helping reduce new offense rates by 30 percent.
• resulted in a net savings of approximately 872 prison beds per year.
• saved more than $29 million in the 27 months after the policy took effect.