Just a warning, what I am about to talk about is sensitive and may be potentially distressing
for some viewers.
Crime shows give Americans a skewed view of the justice system.
For the most heinous of crimes, evidence abounds and the bad guy is always caught.
Yet thousands of victims of sexual assault, never get their TV ending.
Right now, States across the country keep hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits
in storage.
Detroit is the most notorious city of late.
Five years ago, 11,000 untested kits were discovered in a warehouse.
Since then, only a fraction of those, 2,000 have been tested.
On average more than half of the kits in storage contain biological evidence, like hair or
blood that did not belong to the victim.
Authorities in Detroit are trying to raise ten million dollars to process and prosecute
the rest of their backlogged rape kits.
So what is a rape kit?
A rape kit is a forensic tool to collect and preserve DNA and other physical evidence after
a sexual assault.
In different cities it goes by different names, in Washington DC they’re called a Physical
Evidence Recovery Kit," or PERK. in other cities its called Sexual assault forensic
evidence or (SAFE) kit.
No matter what they’re called they contain the same basic tools.
A kit can contain a blood sample from the victim, swabs to collect bodily fluids, a
comb to collect hair and fiber from clothing, a nail pick to get any evidence from under
the nail and storage boxes, bags, and or slides to
preserve them.
There’s usually bigger bags to collect some clothing or material from the victim and up
to 15 envelopes to store the evidence.
The collection is part of a hospital exam and should be done within 98 hours of the
assault.
The collection is done by a trained member of sexual assault response team in a private,
secluded part of the hospital.
An exam is performed after a victims gives written consent and a thorough medical history.
Starting with less invasive collection, swabbing the mouth and getting underneath the fingernails,
then collecting hair and fiber samples, moving on to more invasive collection, photographing
any injuries and swabbing the gentitalia and anal area which can be very emotionally trying
to a victim.
During the exam a doctor can test for sexual transmitted infections as well as provide
emergency contraception.
The whole process can take a few hours.
While difficult, collecting the evidence is worth it.
Rape kits can confirm a victims report, identify an unknown perpetrator or identify a serial
offender, and even clear innocent suspects.
But for thousands of kits to go untested is more than just shameful, it’s a huge disservice
to victims of sexual assault everywhere.
Small police budgets and a false belief that testing was only beneficial in cases where
the rapist was stranger kept kits on the shelf.
But there is hope, many cities across the nation are racing to get rape kits out of
storage and processed.
For example, in San Francisco, a kit must be sent to a crime lab within 72 hours of
collection and information uploaded to a National Database within two weeks.
And across the country other states implemented legislation to reform the process of their
kits.
For more information on the backlog and for more resources on sexual assault check out
some of the links we have in the description below.