Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/tag/kentucky/)
A conservative dark money group is influencing public welfare laws in Kentucky, and advocates say it could have a detrimental impact on access to benefits for the state’s most vulnerable residents.
Despite years of urging by child welfare experts, and even though Kentucky has some of the highest rates of child maltreatment and opioid abuse in the nation, family recovery courts are still not widely available throughout the state
More than 20% of Kentucky children are growing up in poverty, but Black and Latinx children are worse off in the state’s most urban counties.
So far this month, the state has recorded over 26,000 cases in kids 18 and under and an average of 59 children hospitalized each day, making it the most dangerous month for children since the pandemic began.
Kentucky AG takes stance in precedent-setting legal battle to determine if indigent people must pay expungement fee.
Amid growing scrutiny of Kentucky law enforcement’s use of asset forfeiture, more than twice as many agencies disclosed last year how much cash and property they seized than they did two years prior.
Of 126 individuals charged as “youthful offenders” in Jefferson County, 117 of them — 93 percent — were black.
Kentucky state law requires emergency rooms to perform forensic sexual assault exams on-site, but hospitals without specially trained nurses sometimes send rape victims away.
Eighty Kentucky dams have deficiencies and are deemed high-hazard, because a breach would threaten lives or property. Only six of those dams have complete emergency plans.
Union halls, churches and other groups have paid the Jefferson County Clerk’s Office for decades to use their voting machines and employees for their private elections. The state auditor’s office has questioned the program’s legality.