{"data":{"id":"us-ky/krs-446.010","jurisdiction":"us-ky","citation":"KRS 446.010","heading":"Definitions for statutes generally.","body":"As used in the statute laws of this state, unless the context requires otherwise:\n(1) \"Action\" includes all proceedings in any court of this state;\n(2) \"Animal\" includes every warm-blooded living creature except a human being;\n(3) \"Attorney\" means attorney-at-law;\n(4) \"Bequeath\" and \"devise\" mean the same thing;\n(5) \"Bequest\" and \"legacy\" mean the same thing, and embrace either real or personal\nestate, or both;\n(6) \"Business trust\" includes, except when utilized in KRS Chapter 386, a \"statutory\ntrust\" as organized under KRS Chapter 386A;\n(7) \"Case plan\" means an individualized accountability and behavior change strategy\nfor supervised individuals that:\n(a) Targets and prioritizes the specific criminal risk factors of the individual\nbased upon his or her assessment results;\n(b) Matches the type and intensity of supervision and treatment conditions to the\nindividual's level of risk, criminal risk factors, and individual characteristics,\nsuch as gender, culture, motivational stage, developmental stage, and learning\nstyle;\n(c) Establishes a timetable for achieving specific behavioral goals, including a\nschedule for payment of victim restitution, child support, and other financial\nobligations; and\n(d) Specifies positive and negative actions that will be taken in response to the\nsupervised individual's behaviors;\n(8) \"Certified mail\" means any method of governmental, commercial, or electronic\ndelivery that allows a document or package to have proof of:\n(a) Sending the document or package;\n(b) The date the document or package was deliver ed or delivery was attempted;\nand\n(c) The signature of the receipt of the document or package;\n(9) \"Company\" may extend and be applied to any corporation, company, person,\npartnership, joint stock company, or association;\n(10) \"Corporation\" may extend and be applied to any corporation, company, partnership,\njoint stock company, or association;\n(11) \"Criminal risk factors\" are characteristics and behaviors that, when addressed or\nchanged, affect a person's risk for committing crimes. The characteristics may\ninclude but are not limited to the following risk and criminogenic need factors:\nantisocial behavior; antisocial personality; criminal thinking; criminal associates;\ndysfunctional family; low levels of employment or education; poor use of leisure\nand recreation; and substance abuse;\n(12) \"Cruelty\" as applied to animals includes every act or omission whereby\nunjustifiable physical pain, suffering, or death is caused or permitted;\n(13) \"Directors,\" when applied to corporations, includes managers or trustees;\n(14) \"Domestic,\" when applied to a corporation, partnership, business trust, or limited\nliability company, means all those incorporated or formed by authority of this state;\n(15) \"Domestic animal\" means any animal converted to domestic habitat;\n(16) \"Evidence-based practices\" means policies, procedures, programs, and practices\nproven by scientific research to reliably produce reductions in recidivism when\nimplemented competently;\n(17) \"Federal\" refers to the United States;\n(18) \"Foreign,\" when applied to a corporation, partnership, limited partnership, business\ntrust, statutory trust, or limited liability company, includes all those incorporated or\nformed by authority of any other state;\n(19) \"Generally accepted accounting principles\" are those uniform minim um standards\nof and guidelines to financial accounting and reporting as adopted by the National\nCouncil on Governmental Accounting, under the auspices of the Municipal Finance\nOfficers Association and by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, under the\nauspices of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants;\n(20) \"Graduated sanction\" means any of a wide range of accountability measures and\nprograms for supervised individuals, including but not limited to electronic\nmonitoring; drug and alcohol  testing or monitoring; day or evening reporting\ncenters; restitution centers; reentry centers; disallowance of future earned\ncompliance credits; rehabilitative interventions such as substance abuse or mental\nhealth treatment; reporting requirements to pro bation and parole officers;\ncommunity service or work crews; secure or unsecure residential treatment facilities\nor halfway houses; and short-term or intermittent incarceration;\n(21) \"Humane society,\" \"society,\" or \"Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to  Animals,\"\nmeans any nonprofit corporation, organized under the laws of this state and having\nas its primary purpose the prevention of cruelty to animals;\n(22) \"Issue,\" as applied to the descent of real estate, includes all the lawful lineal\ndescendants of the ancestors;\n(23) \"Land\" or \"real estate\" includes lands, tenements, and hereditaments and all rights\nthereto and interest therein, other than a chattel interest;\n(24) \"Legatee\" and \"devisee\" convey the same idea;\n(25) \"Livestock\" means cattle, sheep, s wine, goats, horses, alpacas, llamas, buffaloes, or\nany other animals of the bovine, ovine, porcine, caprine, equine, or camelid species;\n(26) \"May\" is permissive;\n(27) \"Month\" means calendar month;\n(28) \"Oath\" includes \"affirmation\" in all cases in which an affirmation may be\nsubstituted for an oath;\n(29) \"Owner\" when applied to any animal, means any person having a property interest\nin such animal;\n(30) \"Partnership\" includes both general and limited partnerships;\n(31) \"Peace officer\" includes sheriffs, constables granted police powers, coroners,\njailers, metropolitan and urban -county government correctional officers, marshals,\npolicemen, and other persons with similar authority to make arrests;\n(32) \"Penitentiary\" includes all of the state penal institutions except the houses of\nreform;\n(33) \"Person\" may extend and be applied to bodies -politic and corporate, societies,\ncommunities, the public generally, i ndividuals, partnerships, joint stock companies,\nand limited liability companies;\n(34) \"Personal estate\" includes chattels, real and other estate that passes to the personal\nrepresentative upon the owner dying intestate;\n(35) \"Pretrial risk assessment\" means an objective, research-based, validated assessment\ntool that measures a defendant's risk of flight and risk of anticipated criminal\nconduct while on pretrial release pending adjudication;\n(36) \"Registered mail\" means any governmental, commercial, or ele ctronic method of\ndelivery that allows a document or package to have:\n(a) Its chain of custody recorded in a register to enable its location to be tracked;\n(b) Insurance available to cover its loss; and\n(c) The signature of the recipient of the document or  package available to the\nsender;\n(37) \"Regular election\" means the election in even-numbered years at which members of\nCongress are elected and the election in odd -numbered years at which state officers\nare elected;\n(38) \"Risk and needs assessment\" or \"va lidated risk and needs assessment\" means an\nactuarial tool scientifically proven to determine a person's risk to reoffend and\ncriminal risk factors, that when properly addressed, can reduce that person's\nlikelihood of committing future criminal behavior;\n(39) \"Shall\" is mandatory;\n(40) \"State\" when applied to a part of the United States, includes territories, outlying\npossessions, and the District of Columbia; \"any other state\" includes any state,\nterritory, outlying possession, the District of Columbia, and any foreign government\nor country;\n(41) \"State funds\" or \"public funds\" means sums actually received in cash or negotiable\ninstruments from all sources unless otherwise described by any state agency, state -\nowned corporation, university, department, cabin et, fiduciary for the benefit of any\nform of state organization, authority, board, bureau, interstate compact,\ncommission, committee, conference, council, office, or any other form of\norganization whether or not the money has ever been paid into the Treasu ry and\nwhether or not the money is still in the Treasury if the money is controlled by any\nform of state organization, except for those funds the management of which is to be\nreported to the Legislative Research Commission pursuant to KRS 42.600, 42.605,\nand 42.615;\n(42) \"Supervised individual\" means an individual placed on probation by a court or\nserving a period of parole or post-release supervision from prison or jail;\n(43) \"Sworn\" includes \"affirmed\" in all cases in which an affirmation may be substitut ed\nfor an oath;\n(44) \"Treatment\" when used in a criminal justice context, means targeted interventions\nthat focus on criminal risk factors in order to reduce the likelihood of criminal\nbehavior. Treatment options may include but shall not be limited to com munity-\nbased programs that are consistent with evidence -based practices; cognitive -\nbehavioral programs; faith -based programs; inpatient and outpatient substance\nabuse or mental health programs; and other available prevention and intervention\nprograms that have been scientifically proven to produce reductions in recidivism\nwhen implemented competently. \"Treatment\" does not include medical services;\n(45) \"United States\" includes territories, outlying possessions, and the District of\nColumbia;\n(46) \"Vacancy in office,\" or any equivalent phrase, means such as exists when there is\nan unexpired part of a term of office without a lawful incumbent therein, or when\nthe person elected or appointed to an office fails to qualify according to law, or\nwhen there has been no election to fill the office at the time appointed by law; it\napplies whether the vacancy is occasioned by death, resignation, removal from the\nstate, county or district, or otherwise;\n(47) \"Violate\" includes failure to comply with;\n(48) \"Will\" includes codicils; \"last will\" means last will and testament;\n(49) \"Year\" means calendar year;\n(50) \"City\" includes town;\n(51) Appropriation-related terms are defined as follows:\n(a) \"Appropriation\" means an authorization by the General Assembly to expend,\nfrom public funds, a sum of money not in excess of the sum specified, for the\npurposes specified in the authorization and under the procedure prescribed in\nKRS Chapter 48;\n(b) \"Appropriation provision\" means a section of any enactment by the General\nAssembly which is not provided for by KRS Chapter 48 and which authorizes\nthe expenditure of public funds other than by a general appropriation bill;\n(c) \"General appropriation bill\" means an enactment by the General Assembly\nthat authorizes the expenditure of public fu nds in a branch budget bill as\nprovided for in KRS Chapter 48;\n(52) \"Mediation\" means a nonadversarial process in which a neutral third party\nencourages and helps disputing parties reach a mutually acceptable agreement.\nRecommendations by mediators are not binding on the parties unless the parties\nenter into a settlement agreement incorporating the recommendations;\n(53) \"Biennium\" means the two (2) year period commencing on July 1 in each even -\nnumbered year and ending on June 30 in the ensuing even-numbered year;\n(54) \"Branch budget bill\" or \"branch budget\" means an enactme nt by the General\nAssembly which provides appropriations and establishes fiscal policies and\nconditions for the biennial financial plan for the judicial branch, the legislative\nbranch, and the executive branch, which shall include a separate budget bill fo r the\nTransportation Cabinet;\n(55) \"AVIS\" means the automated vehicle information system established and\nmaintained by the Transportation Cabinet to collect titling and registration\ninformation on vehicles and boats and information on holders of motor vehi cle\noperator's licenses and personal identification cards;\n(56) \"Cooperative,\" except in KRS Chapter 272, includes a limited cooperative\nassociation; and\n(57) \"Unmanned aircraft system\" means an aircraft that is operated without the\npossibility of direct h uman interaction from within or on the aircraft and includes\neverything that is on board or otherwise attached to the aircraft and all associated\nelements, including communication links and the components that control the small\nunmanned aircraft that are r equired for the safe and efficient operation of the\nunmanned aircraft in the national airspace system.","path":["KRS Chapter 446"],"source_url":"https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=53285","current_through":"Includes enactments through the 2026 Regular Session","vintage":"09/05/2026","retrieved_at":"2026-09-05T20:48:20Z","sha256":"e3e720e0ecba44adbcf8b8326a869b709d94d07976da5acd4b8296e251044d70","source_id":"us-ky","stale":false,"prev":"us-ky/krs-441.990","next":"us-ky/krs-446.012"},"notice":"GroundRules: Original legal text. Not legal advice."}