Rural, urban influenced, and urban differences among domestic violence arrestees

The purpose of this article was to examine a statewide random sample of rur al, urban influenced, and urban males arrested for perpetrating domestic vi olence against an intimate partner on demographic, criminal justice history , substance use, relationship characteristics, child abuse, and treatment e xposure factors. The study used a 9% random sample of 1,112 pretrial interv iew records on males arrested for domestic violence in 1997 in Kentucky. Th e study examined perpetrators in three geographical areas to examine region al differences. Results indicated that community context is critical in und erstanding domestic violence. In general, rural males appear to present mor e significant problems given their lower employment rates, lower educationa l attainments, greater use of psychoactive medication, and higher arrest ra tes. Alcohol use was significantly prevalent across all three groups, but c ombined alcohol and nerve pill drug use was more prevalent among rural dome stic violence arrestees. Implications are discussed.