Parents could stay out of prison for nonviolent felonies under KY Senate bill
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- Senate Bill 122 would let judges offer probation to certain parenting defendants.
- Bill requires judges to review a family‑impact statement.
- Opponents cite program funding gaps, potential two‑tier justice system.
Under a bill advancing in the Senate, Kentuckians convicted of certain nonviolent felonies could avoid prison if judges decide it would be better for them to remain in the community on probation while they continue to care for their dependent children.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6-to-1 on Thursday to approve Senate Bill 122 from Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, and send it to the Senate floor.
The bill — called the Family Preservation and Accountability Act — would create a path for alternative sentencing if defendants request it and judges agree.
Judges would review a “family-impact statement” before sentencing that would explain how defendants are caretakers for children and could benefit from getting probation instead of prison, as well as services such as addiction treatment, counseling, parenting classes and financial and literacy training.
Testifying to the committee on Thursday, Brittany Herrington of Greenup County said she missed part of her young son Gavin’s childhood while she was incarcerated on drug-related crimes. Herrington said she asked to be sent to residential addiction treatment so she could continue being present for her son, to no avail.
“Every single time I entered a courtroom, I begged a judge for intervention,” Herrington told the lawmakers. “The words from the judge were, ‘You should have thought about your child prior to committing your crime.’ And while that’s true, I was very sick.”
In March, Herrington said, she will celebrate 16 years in recovery. She now works as a peer program coordinator for other mothers trying to overcome addiction.
“The years of destruction — the years of generational damage that incarceration causes to families — is worth a few minutes of consideration inside of a courtroom,” Herrington said.
In his own testimony, Gavin Herrington, now 19, said he kissed his mother’s photograph every night at bedtime at his grandmother’s house when he was a little boy because she was in jail, not at home with him.
“My mom wasn’t a bad mom. She was sick,” he said. “And the punishment she received didn’t just sentence her, it sentenced me, too.”
Also speaking for the bill, state Rep. Nick Wilson, R-Williamsburg, said he was inspired to file a similar House bill last year after seeing a generation of families wrecked by opioid addiction in Eastern Kentucky. Wilson’s bill cleared the House last year unanimously but stalled in the Senate Families and Children Committee.
“I’m a kid of the ‘90s,” Wilson said.
“In the ‘90s and 2000s, Oxycontin prescriptions were out of control,” he said. “And to put it bluntly, it destroyed our society — the familial structure which is the backbone of our society. So here we are 20, 30 years later, still dealing with the fallout of this opioid epidemic.”
For many people addicted to drugs, the biggest motivation that will inspire them to beat the addiction is wanting to be better parents for their kids, Wilson said. The Senate bill uses that motivation, rather than just breaking up families by sending parents to prison, he said.
But there were voices of opposition, too.
State Sen. Phillip Wheeler, R-Pikeville, who ultimately voted for the bill, said he fears it could create a “two-tier system of justice” favoring criminal defendants who have children over those who don’t.
“Let’s just say hypothetically I’m a drug addict, you’re a drug addict. But you have two kids and I don’t,” Wheeler said.
“You’re going to be eligible for a program that keeps you out of the clink, while myself who — perhaps arguably — is more responsible because I’ve not brought a bunch of people into the world who might be on social services and everything else,” Wheeler said. “I gotta go to jail, but you don’t.”
Wilson said he rejected that criticism because judges already can make decisions at sentencing based on family circumstances. Also, the Senate bill would not give defendants a break simply for siring offspring; it specifically requires them to have assumed responsibility for children through housing, health, education and safety.
Two circuit judges who testified referenced Wilson’s point. They said they already can make sentencing decisions based on whether a defendant is caring for children, so the bill would only add an unnecessary layer of hearings requiring more personal documents to be produced and prosecutors to be present.
There also is the question of who will pay for the treatment and counseling programs defendants would be required to attend as a condition of their probation or else risk a revocation hearing and prison, said Campbell Circuit Judge Julie Reinhardt Ward.
“If the idea of the bill is that we would be able to provide some sort of counseling, or we would be able to have parenting classes, and you all would fund that, I’m in,” Ward told the committee. “We’re all in. We would love to have those kinds of services available to us.”
“But we don’t have those services readily available in all of our communities, and if they are available, they’re not free,” the judge said. “Defendants have to pay for that.”
