Overview#
A patrol officer arrives at a domestic violence call. The victim has visible injuries, but by the time detectives follow up the next morning she has recanted. Without the 911 call recording, the officer's body-worn camera footage, medical photographs, and a documented history of prior callouts to the same address, the case stalls. With them, prosecution can proceed even without victim testimony.
Argus Domestic Violence Response and Investigation supports responding officers, detectives, victim advocates, prosecutors, and child protective services in building strong cases while keeping victims safe. The platform combines lethality risk assessment, evidence documentation, protective order management, and victim services coordination into a single structured workflow.
Open Standards#
- NIEM 6.0 (National Information Exchange Model): Incident and case records are exported as NIEM 6.0 JSON payloads using the Justice (JXDM 7.2) and Emergency Management domain namespaces, enabling direct push to records management systems such as Hexagon RMS.
- OASIS Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) v1.2: Domestic violence incidents can be serialised as CAP 1.2 XML documents (urn:oasis:names:tc:emergency:cap:1.2) for interoperation with multi-agency alerting and notification systems.
- CloudEvents 1.0: Every step in the incident unified timeline is wrapped in a CloudEvents 1.0 envelope with RFC 9562 UUIDv7 identifiers, providing a vendor-neutral event stream for cross-agency integration.
- W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model v2.0: Evidence items receive Ed25519-signed W3C Verifiable Credentials issued under a DID, creating a cryptographically verifiable chain of custody from scene collection through prosecution.
- ISO 19005 (PDF/A-1, PDF/A-2, PDF/A-3, PDF/A-4): Prosecution disclosure packages and court-admissible evidence exports are generated as PDF/A archival documents with embedded CJIS Policy 5.9 SHA-256 integrity digests and RFC 3161 timestamp receipts.
- ISO/IEC 27037:2012: Bates-numbered e-discovery exports and digital evidence handling procedures are aligned with this standard for identification, collection, acquisition, and preservation of digital evidence.
- EXIF (JEITA/CIPA CP-3451): Photographic evidence ingestion extracts embedded EXIF metadata including GPS coordinates, capture timestamp, and device fingerprint to establish provenance and geolocation for scene photographs and time-lapse injury documentation.
Last Reviewed: 2026-02-23 Last Updated: 2026-04-14
Key Features#
Lethality Assessment and Risk Screening#
Research-validated lethality assessment instruments identify victims at imminent risk of lethal violence and trigger enhanced safety planning. Supported instruments include the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence Lethality Assessment Protocol (11-item field screening), the Danger Assessment (20-item intimate partner homicide risk tool), the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment for recidivism prediction, and the Brief Spousal Assault Form for offender risk management. Composite risk scoring across instruments generates recommended intervention levels and automatically routes high-risk cases to supervisors.
Strangulation Documentation and Medical Forensics#
Non-fatal strangulation is one of the strongest predictors of intimate partner homicide and often leaves no visible marks at the time of incident. The platform automatically flags strangulation cases for mandatory medical forensic examination. Documentation protocols include multi-source photography, alternate light source imaging to reveal injuries invisible to the naked eye, and time-lapse photography at 24, 48, and 72-hour intervals to capture delayed bruising. Internal injury assessment coordination with emergency medical services is built into the workflow.
Protective Order Management and Enforcement#
End-to-end protective order management covers electronic filing, real-time service tracking, GPS compliance monitoring, and automated violation detection. The system handles emergency protective orders, temporary restraining orders, and permanent protective orders with jurisdiction-specific requirements. Automated compliance monitoring detects geographic exclusion zone breaches, no-contact violations, third-party contact attempts, firearm surrender deadline violations, and technological abuse. Violations trigger automated dispatch, victim notification, and judicial alerts.
Evidence Collection and Documentation#
Structured evidence collection workflows ensure thorough documentation for both misdemeanour and felony cases. The platform guides collection of photographic evidence with time-lapse follow-up, forensic biological samples, 911 call recordings, body-worn camera footage, phone records, location data, and surveillance footage. All categories are organised into comprehensive prosecution files ready for discovery.
Trauma-Informed Interviewing#
Interview protocols prioritise survivor trauma responses while collecting evidence. The platform supports victim-centred approaches respecting autonomy, cultural sensitivity with interpreter support, specialised handling when children are present, and audio and video documentation to preserve excited utterance evidence for cases where victims later recant or cannot testify.
Evidence-Based Prosecution Support#
The platform organises eight categories of evidence for victimless prosecution: 911 call recordings, officer observations, independent witness statements, medical evidence, physical evidence, digital evidence, defendant admissions, and prior incident history. Vertical prosecution support enables dedicated prosecutors to manage cases from charging through sentencing with a complete case picture.
High-Risk Team Coordination#
High-risk cases trigger automated multi-agency notification and coordination covering high-risk case conferences, supervisor review, prosecutor flagging, enhanced safety planning including shelter placement and emergency relocation, and protective measures including firearms restriction checks and electronic monitoring.
Children's Safety Integration#
Concurrent coordination between domestic violence investigation and child welfare systems covers child exposure assessments, custody and visitation safety planning, coordinated case plans with child protective services, supervised visitation recommendations, and safety-focused parenting plans.
Offender Accountability#
GPS electronic monitoring with automated violation alerting, batterer intervention programme coordination and compliance monitoring, bail condition tracking, and sentencing enhancement documentation for protective order violations and pattern offences.
Use Cases#
- Patrol Response: Administer lethality assessment at scene, make immediate warm transfer to victim advocates, document evidence, and issue emergency protective orders.
- Detective Investigation: Follow-up investigations with strangulation medical forensics, digital evidence collection, and high-risk case management.
- Victim Services: Crisis intervention, safety planning, shelter placement, protective order petition assistance, and ongoing safety monitoring.
- Prosecution: Victimless prosecution strategy development, expert witness coordination, and victim preparation using trauma-informed approaches.
- Child Protective Services: Concurrent domestic violence and child abuse investigations, child exposure assessments, and coordinated case plans.
Integration#
Connects with law enforcement CAD and RMS systems, court electronic filing systems, NCIC protective order files, GPS monitoring services, shelter management systems, child welfare case management, and victim notification services. Supports compliance with the Violence Against Women Act including full faith and credit enforcement for out-of-state protective orders and federal firearm prohibition tracking.