While lawmakers are working with haste to beat the midnight deadline for passing bills before the veto recess period.

Several bills are hanging in the balance as the clock ticks on, but several measures were finalized today, including a massive anti-crime bill that's on its way to the governor's desk.

House Bill five billed as the Safer Kentucky Act, stiffens Penalties for Repeat Violent Offenders places limits on charitable bond organizations and outlaws camping on streets, sidewalks and other public grounds.

Anyone who sells or distributes fitting all that causes a fatal overdose could be charged with manslaughter under the bill.

In addition, House Bill five would classify carjacking as a Class B felony and increase the penalties for fleeing or evading police, among other changes.

While some minority party members applaud their restorative justice piece to help children referred by the courts and social service agencies, most Democrats blasted the measure as too costly and claim it will make police less safe, worsen jail overcrowding and criminalize the poor and the homeless.

Fewer than half of Kentucky's counties even have a homeless shelter.

We are requiring the enforcement of a law that essentially criminalizes the act of being homeless.

The solution, then, is not criminalization.

The solution is more housing to have greater urban infill to reduce zoning restrictions, to reduce property hoarding from those who seek not to rent or sell homes, but instead simply to aggregate a larger portfolio.

Criminalizing sleeping in encampments and then allowing landlords to discriminate against Section eight tenants as we've addressed in another bill that I will not speak about at this moment, will not address the housing shortage.

What we really need to do is we need to figure out the root cause of violence and to increase the penalties may make us on paper look like we feel safer.

I do not know that it will make us actually be more safe.

The Safer Kentucky Act, as it's called, doesn't build any football fields, basketball courts or soccer pitches.

No bike trails, hiking paths or rec centers.

It doesn't help shore up county or city budgets so they can invest in quality of life enhancements like clean waterways, fresh air or public spaces.

Instead, it saddles many counties with ever increasing incarceration costs.

According to the National Institute of Justice, increasing the severity of punishment does little to deter the occurrence of violent crime.

We're not getting at the root cause here, folks.

We're not solving the problem.

We need to bolster a system that neglects the circumstances of each crime and essentially removes the discretion in our judicial system.

We elect judges to decide that's their job, and we're taking that discretion away from them.

House Bill five also contains what's called a shopkeeper's provision that allows business owners and employees to use a, quote, reasonable amount of force to prevent suspected shoplifters from escaping.

Critics have decried the so called three strikes provision that denies probation, parole or early release for those convicted of three violent felonies and announced bloating the list of felonious crimes.

What we have is a both and approach in Kentucky.

We have more treatment beds than any other state per capita, any other state, something that our governor stood right there and said, thankfully he did.

We all support it.

House Bill six, House Bill one doubled down on that.

We believe in treatment and protecting our people and getting our people back on their feet.

We believe in restorative justice for those who could get back to our communities and get back to their families.

And our budgets have said that.

But we also believe that when you commit crime in violence against our people, we are going to protect the rest of us against you.

Two of the things that the minority screamed about is three strikes, three strikes for violent IT provision.

How many times can you burn down a house?

How many people do you get to rape?

How many people do you get to assault with deadly weapons?

How many people do you get to kill before we put you away forever?

Three is too many.

And that's what this bill allows.

House Bill five The SAFER Kentucky Act was awarded final passage on a 75 to 23 House vote and will be sent to the governor for him to either sign, veto or let become law without his signature.