Kentucky Lawmakers Introduce Family Preservation and Accountability Act to Keep Families Together and Reduce Harm to Children

FRANKFORT, Ky. – Lawmakers today introduced the Family Preservation and Accountability Act (HB464), bipartisan legislation designed to reduce the unnecessary separation of families while maintaining accountability for nonviolent offenses.

Kentucky leads the nation in the share of children who have experienced parental incarceration. Nearly 12 percent of Kentucky children, more than 150,000 kids, currently have or previously had a parent behind bars. The impact is especially severe for families with primary caregivers, where incarceration often triggers foster care placements, long-term trauma, and lasting instability for children.

Kentucky also incarcerates women at one of the highest rates in the world, a reality that disproportionately disrupts families and places children into an already overcrowded foster care system, even when safter, more effective alternatives exist.

The Family Preservation and Accountability Act will allow judges to use community-based sentencing alternatives for primary caregivers convicted of nonviolent offenses. These options hold people accountable while prioritizing treatment, supervision, and family stability. They cost less than incarceration and reduce reoffending, improving public safety while protecting children from unnecessary harm.

“I’m a kid of the 90s,” said Representative Nick Wilson (R-82). “And basically, everybody who got a backache was getting prescribed Oxycontin. I think we’re still seeing the detrimental effects of what happened for that 10, 15, 20-year period of time. I’m a father now. I have a one and a two-year-old. To me, that’s what this bill is about. Help people learn how to be parents, because it’s so worth it, and it’s crucial to our society.”

Kentucky’s over reliance on incarceration is tearing families apart and leaving children with trauma they did nothing to earn.

“It comes down to some basic principles,” said Andrew McNeil of KY FREE. “I’m a Republican, I’m a conservative. We have Republican and conservative supermajorities in the General Assembly. If the question is asked, ‘why support this bill?’ the answer is there in the title: Family Preservation.”

“At its core, this legislation reflects a simple belief,” said ACLU-KY Executive Director Amber Duke. “Kentucky kids shouldn’t serve their parents’ sentences.”

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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kentucky is freedom's watchdog, working daily in the courts, legislature and communities to defend individual rights and personal freedoms. For additional information, visit our website at: www.aclu-ky.org.