Media Archive by Topic: rape kit backlog

The HBO documentary ‘I am Evidence,’ produced by actress Mariska Hargitay, follows women who reported sexual assaults and provided DNA evidence but discovered it was never tested.

Mariska Hargitay has been investigating crimes as Olivia Benson on Law & Order for almost two decades. And now she’s fighting for real-life justice to end rape-kit backlog, which is the subject of her new HBO documentary, I Am Evidence.

The original brilliance of the rape kit stemmed from the then-novel realization that the body of “a survivor of rape is a crime scene and there’s valuable evidence there,” says Ilse Knecht, policy and advocacy director for the Joyful Heart Foundation.

Texas Chief Investigator and Sexual Assault Investigation Trainer, Wayne Springer, says an officer’s job is to collect and send the facts, not pass judgment. “This is the only crime you'll ever see that the victim becomes the accused almost instantly,” Springer explains.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice is contracting with two more private labs to analyze untested sexual assault kits.

The Joyful Heart Foundation has been pushing states to analyze untested kits in hopes of developing DNA profiles for serial offenders. Nearly 4,000 Wisconsin kits have been designated for testing. Analysis has been completed on 862 kits so far.

A woman who waited five years for charges to be filed against her alleged rapist is suing the city of Houston, accusing authorities of showing "deliberate indifference" by failing to investigate a backlog of rape kits that could have identified her attacker much earlier.

Beverly Flores last week joined a federal civil rights lawsuit filed in September by another former Houston resident, DeJenay Beckwith. The two women seek damages, saying officials violated their due process and equal protection rights.

If you believe in justice for the victims of sexual abuse, then make Mariska Hargitay’s HBO documentary - I AM EVIDENCE - coming to HBO in the next few months - a priority to watch. It will enrage you to know that over 400,000 rape kits in the USA have remained untested, leaving victims without justice and predators on the loose to rape again.

There are 5,396 sexual assault kits held in police custody that have not been tested, according to the results of an Indiana State Police audit.

State senators had adopted a resolution in April that urged State Police to count the number of untested sexual assault kits throughout the state and determine reasons why they were not tested.

The Missouri Attorney General's Office says it hopes to determine by early next year how many untested rape kits are on shelves in Missouri, a first step in an effort to improve the state's response to sexual assault.

The Massachusetts House of Representatives approved a proposal to overhaul the state's policy for tracking and testing rape kits.

The proposal was adopted as an amendment to the criminal justice reform bill passed Tuesday night. House Minority Leader Bradley Jones Jr. proposed the amendment, which calls for the creation of a rape kit tracking system with the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.

New York City is getting some federal help to eliminate its backlog of untested rape kits.

The Justice Department’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative is distributing $34 million to 20 jurisdictions around the country. The grants will help test kits that have often sat in evidence lockers for years, prosecute those identified by DNA analysis, and keep victims informed.

Like many states, Indiana has a problem — mountains of untested rape exam kits in local law enforcement agencies that contain DNA evidence potentially identifying sex offenders. Indiana’s backlog of untested kits is certainly in the thousands. Victim advocates say the question is, how many thousands?

No one can accurately answer that question — at least not until Dec. 1. That’s when a report to lawmakers is due from Indiana State Police, detailing the number of untested kits warehoused by law enforcement agencies around the state.