Family disruption, domestic violence and assaults against the police in Kentucky

Purpose Informed by the social disorganization theory (SDT), the study intends to identify the ecological factors most likely to predict assaults against the police recorded over five years in a southern American state, which has a relatively large rural population. Design/methodology/approach The study uses aggregated county-level data on non-lethal assault against the police recorded in Kentucky between 2012 and 2016. We anticipated that structural conditions would affect directly and indirectly assaults against the police. Because predictors of social disorganization generally correlate with crimes police respond to, we hypothesized that the effects of SDT predictors on police victimization will be mediated by violent crime rates and domestic violence rates. Findings The study found partial empirical support for the social disorganization theory. Assaults against the police were more common in counties that had a higher proportion of female-headed households, higher rates of domestic violence citations and higher violent crime rates. Conversely, police victimization was less common in densely populated areas and in counties with higher poverty rates. While family disruption had significant direct and indirect positive effects on police victimization, the significant positive effect of ethnic heterogeneity (percent Black population) was only indirect. Residential instability did not predict significant variations in police victimization. Originality/value To our knowledge, no prior research attempted to determine if SDT is a valid theoretical framework when non-lethal assaults on police are examined beyond metropolitan areas. This analysis extends to counties research assessing the effects of structural conditions on nonfatal assaults against the police. Additionally, by including domestic violence among the correlates of police victimization, the current macro-level study addresses an apparent gap in the literature.