And other news, a report from this year shows nearly half of all violent crime occurs between family members and intimate partners.

Kentucky lawmakers reviewed the findings at the Capitol late last week, where experts praised legislative remedies, but said courts and law enforcement need more domestic violence resources.

Our June Lefler has more.

In Kentucky, most people will suffer some abuse from a family member or intimate partner.

60% of that was intimate partner violence, and 40% of that was child abuse or elder abuse and other types of family violence.

This data was compiled by the Council of State Governments Justice Center and released in January.

The center analyzed not just incidents of violence, but how courts, law enforcement and corrections play their part.

The report found victims are more likely to receive emergency protective orders than they would have in recent years, though permanent protective orders are declining and perpetrators who violate EPS are twice as likely to be convicted than they would have a decade ago.

Just 3% of victims receive some compensation, though that's more than in recent years, and nearly all police departments have domestic violence protocol, but they perform no risk assessment in responding to these incidents.

A Lexington Democrat and attorney says the system could better respond to her client's needs.

Service of process is a major issue.

I see that, as I work in domestic violence court, I know that many of the survivors that I represent come back week after week after week to preserve their orders and hope that the offender has been served.

And I know that, tragically, in Fayette County, we just had a mass shooting perpetrated by someone who had an unserved protective order against him.

Perhaps if we could have reached him, we could have taken away the weapons that he used to kill two people in Lexington.

Every recommendation that I can think of requires resources.

Because the the difficulty.

And there's two difficulties, right?

One is finding the person, but the larger issue or is the the time it takes to do that.

And so there are a number of jurisdictions that have dedicated units that that's all that they do.

But that works well in large jurisdictions.

That's much more difficult in a small jurisdiction where you only have a few officers available.

Kentucky police report the challenges of responding to so many intimate partner violence calls.

80% of the respondents indicated that the size of their staff was a major barrier hindering the agency from being able to effectively respond.

They also reported that responses to domestic violence calls generally took at least an hour for the initial response.

This expert tells lawmakers in this legislative committee that they are making progress.

I think you said Kentucky is one of the top 3 or 4 states that take domestic violence seriously.

I would I want to ask you to elaborate on that.

The bills that you have passed, the way that you do take it seriously, the impact that your Victim Services folks have had in the last several years and in moving this forward in the fact that you haven't just said, oh, well, you know, it's something that happens, that is massively impressive.

This year, lawmakers stiffen penalties for repetitive domestic violence violations.

They also expanded victims compensation and statewide reporting.

In recent years.

For Kentucky edition, I'm June Lefler.

Many thanks.

June.

Kentucky released its first statewide domestic violence report in 2023.

Something state lawmakers voted for.

It found that 45% of women and 35% of men have experienced intimate partner violence.