A 2008 report found Kentucky had the fastest-growing prison population in the nation. The General Assembly responded by changing how some low-level drug offenders are punished. The law emphasized substance abuse treatment over incarceration and allowed non-violent drug offenders with six months remaining on their sentence to leave prison under supervised release.
Speaking on NPR's Here and Now, Kentucky Justice Secretary J. Michael Brown said the state's prison population has shrunk by more than two-thousand since the law went into effect in 2011.
“Our probation and parole numbers have gone up about four thousand, but it only costs maybe eight dollars a day to supervise somebody on probation where it costs twenty thousand dollars a year to keep somebody in prison.” --J. Michael Brown
Despite concerns by opponents of early release, Secretary Brown said Kentucky's crime rate has remained virtually flat and recidivism is down since the law was enacted.