so make sure to plan accordingly.

A report out last month shows some startling statistics when it comes to how many folks are behind bars in Kentucky.

An analysis from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Prison Policy Initiative finds that if Kentucky were a country, its incarceration rate would rank among the top ten in the world.

Why are so many Kentuckians behind bars?

Last week, I talked to the communications director of the Prison Policy Initiative about the group's report and key findings.

Mike Wessler, communications director with the Prison Policy Initiative.

It's a pleasure to connect with you today, sir.

You too.

Thank you for having me on.

So let's talk about this report and put into context for us Kentucky's overall incarceration rate and how that compares to other states in the nation and perhaps even to other countries, developed democratic countries.

Absolutely.

You know, I think most people now recognize that the United States is unique in the number of people that it locks up.

We recognize that we lock up and have for a lot for 40 years locked up a huge number of folks.

What I think is often missing, though, is kind of the global context of where the United States falls in there.

And I think once you have that context, you realize how big the mass incarceration crisis is in America.

So what we did was we looked at the car isolation rates for all 50 states, but treated them as if they were a country and compared them to all the country across the globe to see what the incarceration rates are.

What we found was there are the ten states that have the second highest incarceration rate in the world only after El Salvador, which is a country that has been essentially run as a police state in one.

So in America, the land of the free, we have the highest incarceration rates are among the highest incarceration rates in the entire globe.

And I think it really shows just how out of whack American policies are in certain states.

Policies are with regard to incarceration, where places are tackling the underlying causes of incarceration and instead simply locking people up as that there is a solution.

Yeah.

And Kentucky, where does Kentucky stand?

Yeah, Kentucky has a incarceration rate of 889 people per 100,000 residents.

Now, for context, the US is incarceration rate is 608 people per 100,000 residents and the lowest state in the country for incarceration rate is Massachusetts, with an incarceration rate of 251 per 100,000 residents.

Now, I think it's important to kind of think about our peer countries know we often think of the peer countries as those countries that were founders of Natal and the next highest after the United States for incarceration rates is the United Kingdom, with 144 per 100,000.

So you're looking at nearly six times lower incarceration rate in the United Kingdom than in Kentucky.

So Mr. Weisler, tell us how many Kentuckians are locked up and where are they locked up?

So in Kentucky, there's 37,000 people behind bars on any given day.

But that only really tells part of the story because about 15,000 of those are in prisons.

The rest of them are in jails.

But what happens with jails, because they're smaller facilities where people come for a shorter stint, you end up seeing many times more people who go through the doors in jails every single year.

On average In Kentucky, there's 209,000 men who are released from jails every single year, and about 81,000 women who are released from jail every single year.

So while it's helpful to look at kind of this snapshot in time and see that there's 37,000 people behind bars, it's important to remember that the impacts of mass incarceration in this country reach far beyond those 37,000 jobs.

And as your report points out, the rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically over the last 40 years.

What are those factors?

What's driving those higher incarceration rates?

Yeah, I think there's a number of things that are driving, you know, the one that you that is inescapable is the role that race plays.

And racism is kind of built into the criminal legal system in this country.

Communities of color, particularly black and brown communities, are overpoliced.

They're over incarcerated.

Once they're arrested, they're less likely to have access to private attorneys that will help them be charges.

They're less likely to have access to diversion programs.

So I think it's always important to start by talking about the role that race plays in the criminal legal system.

Now, beyond that, I think there's a couple of factors playing, you know.

One is the implementation of so-called tough on crime policies.

These are policies that kind of throw the book at people who are convicted of crimes, sometimes even for relatively minor crimes, they can spend decades behind bars.

Now, in the early nineties, we particularly saw a lot of these laws implemented and take effect.

And then in the last decade or so, we've seen some states start to recognize that that didn't make communities safer and they started to repeal some of those.

Now.

Unfortunately, many of those states have started to turn back to those tough on crime policies that had failed in the nineties because of this notion that crime is increasing.

Right now, the data doesn't support that.

Crime is at near 60 year lows.

It's just the perception.

I think many politicians have gained a lot of advantage by stoking fears about crime, and I think that's what we're seeing now.

So I think the tough on crime policies play one part of it.

I think the other part that's important to note is the failure to invest in treating mental health issues in this country.

The failure to address substance use disorder in this country, the failure to address the need for housing in this country.

You know, people who are experiencing homelessness start dramatically more likely to end up behind bars.

So I think those are the factors that kind of combine to create the mass incarceration crisis that's in Kentucky and across the country.

Lastly, I want to talk to you about pretrial incarceration numbers, which may be a that's not even the right word because these people have not been yet convicted of a crime, but they're being held being held right for bail.

Topics about the impact of those numbers alone on the overall incarceration rates.

Yeah, 44% of people who are behind bars on any given day in Kentucky are there pretrial.

And that means that they are legally innocent.

They've not been convicted of any crime.

Now, some of them are there awaiting their initial court appearance where bail can be set.

But a lot of them, the majority of them are there simply because they're too poor to afford bail.

You know that the average person who is incarcerated, the average man who's incarcerated in this country in jail awaiting trial, has an annual income before they're incarcerated, a $14,000.

The annual income of a woman who's awaiting trial is 11,000.

The median bail in this country is $10,000.

So most the majority of people who are in jail for conviction are there just because they're too poor to get out.

It's not because they're the thing that they're arrested for presents some serious threat to the safety of the community.

It's not because they're a flight risk.

You know, most of these folks struggle to put gas in their car every single day.

So they're certainly not going to get on a plane and fly to another country to avoid trial.

So it's incarcerating folks in jails simply because they're too poor.

And that has collateral consequences as well.

A short jail stint can cost somebody their job.

It can cost them their home.

It can cost them the custody of their children.

Sort of have a massive collateral consequences.

And it's all because they're just too poor to afford bail.

That's not making community safer.

Mr. Mike Wessler, communications director for the Prison Policy Initiative, thank you for your time.

Thank you.