How long should someone be locked up for a crime?

Well, the answer depends if you're the victim offender or even an attorney in a case.

In light of a proposed crime bill in Frankfurt, we went outside the state House to speak with those who've lived behind bars and those who have put people there.

Jeremy Thompson has been policing Kentucky's streets for decades.

And I'm seeing some of the same names over and over for violent crimes.

That's why Thompson and other law enforcement support the Save for Kentucky Act, which passed in the House last week.

It stiffens consequences for repeat violent offenders.

So we're talking about a small group that is proven over and over again that they are dangerous to society and they've had all the chances that they've had prior.

Leading up to these third and subsequent offenses.

The three strikes provision would put people behind bars for life if they commit a third violent offense.

Years ago, 60 year old Rodriguez Bellinger would have fit that bill.

I first had a manslaughter charge.

I was arrested for what I thought I was protecting myself.

He withdrew.

He shot our shot.

He got on.

I'm here.

They gave me ten years for manslaughter.

Bellinger got out in five years with a conditional release.

He had to get a job and stay out of trouble.

But he went back to the same life and friends he knew.

I got in the car with a friend.

Didn't have enough in me to ask.

What you doing?

How you doing?

You steal, my friend?

I'm in the neighborhood.

And we went to a place and he went into a cleaners and said, Hey, man, you drive.

I'm gonna go get my clothes.

Well, unbeknownst to me, he had just robbed a place before I got in the car and he robbed a cleaners.

With two more robbery charges, Ballenger became labeled a persistent felony offender.

Kentucky's long standing PFO statute increase his jail time.

And I was found guilty of 20 2020.

PFO enhanced them to life.

Life, life.

All because I didn't have enough in me to not be a snitch.

I was holding on to the street cred instead of real sense.

Bellinger made his case for parole.

He got out in 12 years.

But the Safer Kentucky Act would likely deny parole and probation for people like Bellinger.

Not because he hurt anyone, but because the bill adds certain robberies and possessing a gun illegally to Kentucky's list of violent crimes.

A lack of opportunity destroys chances.

And if a person doesn't have chances, they have no hope.

So this bill will eliminate hope, chances and opportunities.

As a prosecutor in Lexington, Kimberly Bayard has to juggle justice for both offenders and victims.

Opponents of House Bill five say it will lead to more people being locked up.

Bayard says at least in Fayette County, she's already under pressure to not sentence to the full extent.

There are people in the Department of Corrections who are saying that the local jails are saying the prisons and jails are overcrowded.

So then they're putting pressure on judges to not to to to choose probation first over sending them to prison.

The argument comes up very quickly that we're going to put more people in jail.

My response to that would be, are we really because we're put in the same people back in jail?

Marcus Jackson served time in Kentucky.

Through programs in prison, he connected with his daughter and learned how to treat drinking water.

But Jackson says that support is rarely accessible to people with long sentences.

In that bill, if you want to lock people up, why don't you have something in place?

When I come through that door?

You should ask me what was your thought and what was your dreams before Whatever happened to you?

Happen.

And how can we get you back to that?

For Kentucky Edition, I'm June Lefler.

Thank you.

June House Bill five cleared the full House late last week.

It's now in the possession of the state Senate for consideration there.