The Pulaski County Detention Center is getting $5,000 from eastern Kentucky nonprofit UNITE. It will help support the facility’s inmate re-entry program.
The program was created to help address jail overcrowding and to keep former prisoners from re-committing crimes.
It trains inmates with technical skills and allows them to earn certifications, money and employment.
Pulaski County jailer Anthony McCollum says the program has proven successful.
“I think we've put through eight to ten classes,” McCollum said. “There’s been 34 that completed it, and only two have reoffended and come back to the facility.”
That’s a recidivism rate of 5.8 percent. Last year, Governor Andy Beshear announced a statewide recidivism rate of 27.15 percent.
McCollum says they’ve worked with local organizations like Somerset Community College and Cumberland Security Bank to get the program running.
“They set (the inmates) up bank accounts to where they could put their paycheck in, and have a savings for whenever they got out, to be able to buy a car, to be able to have housing, to be able to have food,” McCollum said.
The money will help the facility purchase more video and training equipment for its new workforce center.
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