Kentucky

State Overview - State Summary - State Projects
Available Reports - Sample Data Collection Forms - Available Data - Links

State Overview

Domestic Violence Legislation:	Yes (403.720)
NIBRS Status:	Certified
Additional Data Elements	No
Law Enforcement DV System:	Incident-based
Service Provider DV System:	Summary
Service Provider SA System:	Summary

State Summary

The state definition of domestic violence only includes persons who are currently living together or who lived together in the past unless they share a common child, regardless of sex. Kentucky is certified to collect and report incident-based data, and law enforcement agencies submit data electronically to the Kentucky State Police. Roughly one quarter of the law enforcement agencies in the state are submitting incident-based data; the agencies submitting summary data are not required to submit any additional information on domestic or sexual violence incidents. No data elements are collected other than what are required by NIBRS, although the State Police are considering adding elements. The incident-based data are included in the Law Information Network of Kentucky (LINK) system, along with domestic violence protection orders. Data are published in an annual crime report and are available upon request.

The Kentucky Domestic Violence Association collects data from domestic violence programs monthly. Aggregate data are available from the Web site and upon request. The Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs collects service data from rape crisis centers quarterly. Data are available upon request.

All law enforcement agencies are required to submit domestic violence incident information to the Families and Children Cabinet of the Department of Community-based Services, Division of Protection and Permanency. This information is included in the State Police annual crime report. The Cabinet, along with the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center, maintains the Intimate Partner Violence Surveillance Project database. This system includes hospital discharge, domestic violence protection order, and adult protective services data, as well as data from a statewide self-report telephone survey. The survey and results are available online.

State Projects

Violence Against Women Study
The Statistical Analysis Center within the Kentucky Criminal Justice Council is undertaking a project to:

identify all available statewide data pertaining to the incidence of domestic and sexual violence including data from criminal justice sources, as well as social services, mental health and victim service providers;
establish a plan and ongoing process for data collection to permit the ability to monitor the data over time and conduct trend analysis;
coordinate data collection efforts through the Data Advisory Team of the Kentucky Criminal Justice Council; and
analyze the data and publish the findings in a statewide report on violence against women.

The Influence of Gender and Victim-Type on Sentencing and Parole of Battered Women: A Secondary Data Analysis
The Center for Research on Violence Against Women at the University of Kentucky is presently undertaking a study of sentencing and parole board decisions in cases in which battered women kill an abusive partner. The primary purpose of this study is to explore the influence of offender gender and victim type in this type of case and to provide a descriptive analysis of the experience of battered women who kill their batterers. The study will also detail one state’s experience with a statutory exemption from the violent offender statute for domestic violence victims.

Domestic Violence Protective Order Project
The overall purpose of this project, done in conjunction with Center for Research on Violence Against Women at the University of Kentucky and the Kentucky Supreme Court, is to examine trends associated with protective orders in order to inform policy makers, the judicial system, advocates and practitioners, and researchers about the process by which victims of domestic violence access the protection of the court, and to recommend methods of improving protection for victims and increasing the efficiency of the process for the court. Specifically, the project is (1) examining trends over time associated with the issuance, service, or violation of protective orders; (2) examining characteristics associated with a subsample of petitioners; (3) examining protective order trends by rural, urban-influenced, and urban characteristics of the jurisdiction in which the order was issued; (4) examining characteristics associated with petitions denied by the court; and (5) analyzing offending patterns in a sub-sample of respondents to protective orders.

Available Reports

General Crime

Kentucky State Police. (Annual). Crime in Kentucky.

Domestic Violence

Quinn, K. The impact of domestic violence on child custody and visitation. Governor's Office of Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Services.
Division of Epidemiology and Health Planning. (2005). Population-based surveillance of intimate partner violence against Kentucky women: A comparison of state and national definitions and findings. Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Department of Health.
DuPree, C. (2003). Jefferson County, Kentucky, arrest policies project: A process evaluation. NCJ 201875. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice.

Sexual Assault

Kilpatrick, D. G. and Ruggiero, K. J. (2003). One in nine: Rape in Kentucky. National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center.

Violence Against Women

Kentucky Criminal Justice Council. (2001). Interim report.
Kentucky Criminal Justice Council. (2000). Sourcebook of criminal justice statistics.

Sample Data Collection Forms

The University of Kentucky Survey Research Center conducts these surveys for the Intimate Partner Violence Surveillance Project:

Self-Report Telephone Survey Instrument

The Kentucky Crime Victims Compensation Board collects information on victims using these forms:

Available Data