FRANKFORT, Ky. — House Republicans from Louisville have filed their broad-reaching public safety bill, called the Safer Kentucky Act. The measure, which was first presented last September, aims to crack down on violent crime.
House Bill 5 was filed Tuesday by State Rep. Jared Bauman, R-Louisville. The bill has 45 cosponsors. Lawmakers who helped write the bill have said it has evolved considerably since it was first envisioned last year.
“We met with [the] homeless community, public defenders community, lawyers across the board, organizations from the right to the left,” State Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville said.
“The bill we filed today is not the same as the one we filed in committee,” Bauman added. “We took some of the feedback from our Democrat colleagues to adjust the policy based on their feedback. And as I would expect that as we go through the process moving forward, there could be further edits, too.”
The broad-reaching bill spans many topics.
One section would create a three strikes law for violent offenders that would result in a life sentence.
“We're trying to reduce victims,” Nemes said. “And if you have said to us numerous times that you're not willing to live within the bounds of decency and you're willing to harm our mothers and daughters and our fathers and sons and our brothers and our neighbors, then we need you off the street.”
Other areas enhance charges for other crimes such as selling fentanyl laced drugs that result in a death.
The bill also criminalizes street camping, but allows cities to create a designated space for it to take place.
“Hopefully, what we can do, the most compassionate thing we can do as a society, is to nudge those people toward getting the help they need,” State Rep. John Hodgson, R-Fisherville, said.
Kungu Njuguna, policy strategist for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kentucky, is not supportive of adding more laws to the books.
“Criminalization penalties don’t make us safe," Njuguna said. "We need to invest in mental health, substance abuse disorder, affordable housing, transportation and education; all of those make us a safer place.”
This is how Bauman believes the success of their proposal can be measured.
“We’ve lost, well, a number of children in our community based on the crime in Louisville, and I think that's a good way to measure it, is those lives being saved, because under this bill, those people wouldn't have been out in our community to offend," he said.