Australian state considers police body cams in domestic violence cases

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One Australian state is considering legislation that would allow police to wear body mounted cameras when entering domestic violence scenes, and allowing for the use of the recordings they collect in court proceedings.

New South Wales – the most populous state in the nation – is the first to consider this kind of legislation, under which, “video statements from the victim, taken at the scene, and powerful video footage taken in the immediate aftermath of domestic violence incidents, will be used as evidence in court cases.” 

Some women’s rights advocates are in favor of the legislation, with the Minister for Women arguing that having an objective record of domestic violence would make convicting abusers more likely – and make it more difficult for them to coerce their victims into retracting their accusations or changing their stories. The chair of the Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Service for the state also argues that using video footage in court will make it easier for abuse victims to attend court hearings. “Women go through a significant amount of stress and trauma when they attend court and, sometimes, that within itself can be enough to stop them attending,” says Tanya Whitehouse. However, Whitehouse stresses that those victims needed to have “a say” in whether or not the footage is used in court proceedings. She also doesn’t mention the very real possibility that sitting in a courtroom while footage of your smashed up home is screened in front of a room full of strangers might be rather stressful and traumatic, as well.

The plan is to spend $100, 000 training police in how to use the cameras appropriately, which, statewide, is not a huge amount of money. And a move like this, which involves the distribution of a new resource and training in how to properly use it, raises important questions: will some police departments have less funding than others, and therefore fewer cameras, or poorer police training, than others? What are the demographics of the people served by those departments? If you lived in an underfunded, under-served region, will you be less likely to have police make a video record of the abuse that happens under your roof? Will you be less likely to have your privacy respected by the police – are they more or less likely to ask your permission to film and to respect your response? These are questions that have to be considered when we implement a new policy like this: it’s not enough to throw cameras at the problem.

Technology has the power to transform the way we do everything, from ordering takeout to prosecuting domestic violence cases. The potential for that kind of transformation is almost always there, as it is here, but far more likely is that new technologies will merely reinforce long-standing inequities.

That’s why domestic abusers and stalkers have taken to smartphone technology like ducks to water – and why they’ve been using it for years, while this legislation was introduced only a few days ago.

When introducing to the enforcement of anti-domestic violence laws, this kind of technology has the power to level the playing field between abusers and victims, or between victims and a system that currently doesn’t serve them well enough, but it doesn’t guarantee a levelling of the playing field between victims. Some victims of domestic violence will be served better by this new law than by current law; others will continue to be underserved, or even mistreated, by the system. Which is not to say we shouldn’t implement it – I think we should. But we should proceed with caution, and with the knowledge that structural inequities don’t fix themselves, and that they can’t be fixed just by adding a new technology to the law enforcement and prosecution process. That technology has to implemented properly, and with an understanding of how the power dynamics of domestic abuse intersect with the power dynamics – of wealth, of access, of relationships with law enforcement and the criminal justice system – that already exist.

Technology has the potential to change everything, and only the potential. If we want to make that change happen, we have to be the ones to make it happen. It has to be a conscious, deliberate choice. Otherwise, technology – body cameras, apps, whatever it is – becomes just another way to reinforce the very systems we’re trying to dismantle.

Chloe Angyal wants to end domestic violence for all Australians.