Women undergo a lengthy and intrusive exam to gather physical evidence, which evidence is supposedly going to be used to bring rapists to justice. However, a New York Times editorial points out that there is an unconscionable backlog in testing those rape kits to obtain the physical evidence necessary to prosecute perpetrators as well as to exonerate those falsely accused.
Women undergo a lengthy and intrusive exam to gather physical evidence, which evidence is supposedly going to be used to bring rapists to justice. However, a New York Times editorial points out that there is an unconscionable backlog in testing those rape kits to obtain the physical evidence necessary to prosecute perpetrators as well as to exonerate those falsely accused.
There is no firm national count of the number of untested rape kits. But last March, Human Rights Watch found more than 12,500 untested rape kits in the Los Angeles area alone. The Houston Police Department recently found at least 4,000 untested rape kits in storage. Detroit’s backlog may be as high as 10,000 untested kits.
This week, the National Institute of Justice, a research arm of the Justice Department, released the results of a survey of more than 2,000 state and local law enforcement agencies, including troubling confirmation of languishing rape case evidence. In 18 percent of open, unsolved rape cases, forensic evidence had not been submitted to a crime lab.
A bipartisan bill that would require an annual reporting of testing backlogs, as well as increase the number of trained personnel, has introduced in the Senate. One of the sponsors is Judiciary Committee chairman Senator Patrick Leahy, the other is not specified.)
Please urge your Senators to support this legislation. It will not only help take repeat rapists off the street; it will also help make sure that innocent people accused of rape are timely released from further prosecution. Moreover, it will make the process of obtaining the rape kit evidence worth the effort and unpleasantness.
This is my first diary on Daily Kos.