Big Idea 2015: Stop Domestic Violence
Randy Kessler
Family Law Attorney, Media Contributor, Emory Law Professor, LinkedIn Influencer (400k followers)
In this series of posts, Influencers and members predict the ideas and trends that will shape 2015. Read all the stories here and write your own (please include the hashtag #BigIdeas2015 in the body of your post).
In family law, we may be getting back to the basics. In 2014 my book, Divorce, Protect Yourself, Your Kids and Your Future was updated and published by the American Bar Association. But let's move beyond protecting assets and parenting time. Protecting the family is paramount, especially with so much domestic violence still happening. The stories of NFL players and others abusing their partners has brought much needed sunlight to this blight.
For years the emphasis has been on keeping the family together and in many countries still today, divorce is almost impossible. Escaping an abusive relationship is very often too difficult to accomplish, not just emotionally, but legally and financially as well. The advent of "no fault" divorce has certainly helped make it easier to escape abusive relationships, but often the peer pressure to "keep the family together" because outsiders do not know how bad the relationship truly is, makes it hard for victims to leave.
Last year when queried about what I thought the big idea for 2014 would be, I focused on smartphones and the rapid spread of access to information. We are there and knowledge is available everywhere (although credible information may require a bit more digging). But this widespread availability of information is expanding and now perhaps the next step is the availability of, and affordability of visual recording. "Video-evidence" is becoming more and more available. We saw this with the Ray Rice elevator incident and the kidnap victim whose kidnapping was caught on videotape.
This may be just the sunlight needed to prevent or reduce the scourge of domestic violence. Cameras at home, on your phone or even from satellites or drones cannot help but catch more perpetrators. And then the knowledge that abusers will have, that possibly they are being watched, may well reduce the quantity of these horrific incidents. Let's hope so. And when discussing this, let's broaden the awareness, use #domesticviolence.
hare krushna
10 年A good deed is never lost
Living in a free society entails risk. Surveillance may make us more safe, but at a cost of giving us less freedom to live our lives the way we see fit. This is a very short-sighted proposal.
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10 年Good point Randy. However, as long as judges are at total liberty to disallow physical evidence of domestic violence (which they do in the majority of sexual & physical violence involving minor children & custodial decisions), then these videos will be no more effective in 'proving' assault than present DNA testing and medical forensic evidence. In our present 'techy age,' we have a tendency to believe in 'magic wands,' which in reality are 'band-aid' solutions to gaping wounds in our societies. If we are truly going to combat domestic violence (through our courts), then we need a fundamental & drastic change in the way lawyers & judges view the rights of women (and children) within the home and marriage. Until, and unless, ALL of the rights of women are recognized in family courts (with stiff sanctions for judicial actors who violate those rights), courts will continue to systematically favor the 'patriarchal' rights of the husband and father over the rights of women & children -- thereby perpetuating, encouraging, and sanctioning domestic violence.
deconstructing liturgitative mantrapeneurship
10 年Nice commercial for more paranoid "security" gimmicks. Don't point your police state at me, please. Good grief, are real adults this na?ve?