In domestic violence situations, Horry County police officers now have a new tool to help them make their case to a jury. The new addition to the police arsenal may be worth a thousand words in court.

In many criminal domestic violence cases, a picture or two can tell the whole story. But Horry County police have often been hampered by an inability to get those pictures, until now.

The county recently received 84 digital cameras from the state Department of Public Safety for the specific purpose of having officers use them to gather evidence in domestic violence cases.

Director of Horry County Public Safety, Paul Whitten, said, "It allows them to document injuries, documents situations and whatever they might find on the scene that would allow them to assist in having a successful prosecution of a criminal domestic violence case."

15th Circuit Solicitor Greg Hembree says pictures are especially important in domestic violence cases, because for a variety of reasons, victims often refuse to cooperate with prosecutors.

Photographs can help the prosecution make its case without the victim's help.

"We can offer that objective evidence in the form of a photograph to a jury or to a judge and paint a more accurate picture for that jury," said Hembree.

One reason why Horry County got the cameras is because it's near the top among all counties in criminal domestic violence cases. But Hembree says over the past five or six years, his office and state lawmakers have taken steps to crack down on C.D.V.

"Incremental steps getting us closer to being able to better prosecute, being able to better document and this is just one more step in that effort to try to curb that problem," said Hembree, who added that a simple photograph can make for better evidence and a higher quality of justice overall.

The Darlington County Sheriff's Office recently received 24 new digital cameras for the same purpose.