Now, according to Kentucky Youth advocates data from 2023, it found more than 100,000 kids in Kentucky have experienced a parent being incarcerated.

In fact, the state has one of the highest parental incarceration rates in the country.

A bill advancing in the state legislature seeks to give judges more sentencing options for primary caregivers.

This morning, the House Families and Children Committee heard testimony from a woman who saw her mother go to jail and was later imprisoned herself.

Describe the impact it had on her family.

I know I made mistakes.

I deeply regret many of my choices, but I truly believe that access to help and resources would have done far more for me and my boys than the trauma of incarceration.

While being locked up was painful, by far the worst pain was being separated from my kids.

State Representative Nick Wilson is the sponsor of House Bill 291.

He says the bill is intended to expand the courts options for nonviolent offenders and ultimately keep families together.

But at least one judge said while she agrees with the bill's intent, she's worried there will be unintended consequences.

There's lots of letters to say, My husband is a wonderful man.

I need him at home.

And but I don't know that those are true.

Most of those are self-reporting.

I don't have anyone to cross examine them.

So I'm in a hearing without that kind of information.

So I would ask that you take that into consideration about the seriousness which with I and the other circuit judges take making findings of fact and determination.

They have a valid point.

A criminal judge, they don't want their ruling to bear anyway.

They don't want to step on the family court's toes.

We added a section that the determination that's being made under this bill is not admissible as evidence in a family court.

It's not determinative caretaker status in another court.

It is only about the sentencing.

About that hearing there that day.

But at the end of the day, judges make rulings.

They make findings.

That's what they do.

And we're asking for them to find whether a person is a productive parent or not.

And some of them already do.

But I want all of them to do that.

That's the that's the reason for this bill.

House Bill 291 unanimously passed out of committee.

It now heads to the full House for consideration there.