LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- When Keith Bramblett objected to not getting "good time credit" off his sentence for taking a class while incarcerated, he said a Kentucky prison official told him to "sue me, See where the buck stops. ... Take your best shot."
In the time since the former inmate filed a class-action federal lawsuit against the state Department of Corrections in 2012, it has cost about $30 million in Kentucky taxpayer money and revealed what a judge called a "severely mismanaged" program that has kept thousands of inmates held in custody months or even years after they should be released.
The lawsuit has been on hold for years in large part because correction officials had no reliable figures on how many inmates like Bramblett were owed time off their sentence for taking educational, drug treatment, vocational or other classes, part of a 2007 state law designed to give inmates skills needed to get a job and better navigate the outside world when they are released.
But a court-ordered, independent audit completed in May is finally shedding light on the program, concluding that the system has been "abysmally managed" and in "chaos for a long, long time."
Among the findings of auditor KPMG, which made more than 150 visits to Kentucky jails and prisons over 2 ½ years:
- More than 3,600 inmates were wrongfully denied good-time credits.
- Of those, more than 2,000 inmates were released late. The average amount of additional time spent behind bars after their release date was 90 days. Some who should have been out died before being released.
- About 1,500 inmates were still in custody and have now received their good-time credit, meaning they should be released on time now.
- And another 6,000 inmates may have wrongfully been denied good-time credit, but there is some disagreement between the state and the plaintiffs. There may be more than 3,000 inmates in this class who were released late.
"How much would I have to pay you to spend 24 hours in a Kentucky prison?" asked attorney Greg Belzley, who is representing the plaintiffs. "We're not just talking about these prisoners. We're talking about their families. We're talking about kids going 90 days without their dad or mom when they should have been home."
"This is very possibly going to be the largest, one of the most costly lawsuits that's going to be brought against this state," Belzley told WDRB News.
State law requires inmates to receive 60-90 days credit on their sentence for each class, which was supposed to save taxpayers money by reducing the length and cost of incarceration, controlling prison crowding and reducing recidivism. (WDRB Photo)
State Senate Judiciary Chairman Whitney Westerfield said no one from the Justice Cabinet has updated him on the audit, adding he may "invite the cabinet to testify" before the judiciary committee next month for an explanation.
"Of course this shouldn't have dragged out as long as it has," he said while also referencing the amount of money shelled out already. "State resources need to be spent hiring more staff for the agency and paying them better. That's a substantial amount of money to spend fixing years-old mistakes."
Morgan Hall, a spokeswoman for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, which is over the corrections department, did not provide a comment.
A message to a spokeswoman at the DOC was not returned.
The law requires inmates to receive 60-90 days credit on their sentence for each class, which was supposed to save taxpayers money by reducing the length and cost of incarceration, controlling prison crowding and reducing recidivism.
"They thought they were messing with inmates that, frankly, nobody cared about until the court made them care," Belzley said. "But they forgot they were supposed to be doing this for taxpayers."
The problems identified in the audit spanned three Kentucky gubernatorial administrations: former Govs. Steve Beshear and Matt Bevin, and current Gov. Andy Beshear. The Corrections Department is part of the executive branch.
A spokeswoman for Beshear did not return a message seeking comment.
After years of mismanagement and litigation, Belzley said the Corrections Department did not attempt to fix the problem until the state ordered audit was completed.
In fact, the audit showed that the department's record got worse after the lawsuit began, with 78% of the errors occurring after the lawsuit was filed and nearly 40 percent after the audit began.
"These over detentions occurred after we had told the defendants not only what the problems were, but that it was causing people to be detained in prison longer than they should have been and they still didn't do anything about it until they were forced by the court," Belzley said.
Even judges presiding in the ongoing lawsuit over the years have largely agreed, criticizing the state's handling of the program, noting there was no course catalog of available classes, no reliable accounting of credits upon completion or any proper record keeping.
"It is undisputed that Kentucky's system of crediting inmates for taking educational and behavioral courses was severely mismanaged and that the leaders of KDOC failed to correct their errors until forced to do so by litigation," wrote U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove in March 2022.
Because of the litigation, Van Tatenhove wrote, the Corrections Department has issued an official course catalog of classes inmates can take, granted credit to thousands of inmates and "overhauled portions of its inadequate process."
Until 2010, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System was in charge of correctional education programs in the prison system, and it ran smoothly.
KCTCS monitored which inmates had completed classes and how much good time they earned, using a computerized system and software that could quickly produce a transcript of every inmate involved in classes, according to court records.
When the Corrections Department took over, the funding of the programs stayed the same but the department did not take the KCTCS software and employees kept records "the best (they) could," according to court documents.
"DOC didn't have the foresight to say give us that too or teach us how to do that," Belzley said. "From that point on, keeping up with the inmates who were taking courses in prisons and jails throughout Kentucky … just fell by the wayside."
A trial date is scheduled for February.
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