State of the Backlog
In the News: LA Officials Honored as Local Backlog Reduced
Dec 13th
Late last week, there was considerable coverage in the L.A. press about the current state of the backlog of untested rape kits in Los Angeles County. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck was honored Friday by the California Forensic Science Institute for his efforts on the issue.
According to an Los Angeles Times, local law enforcement has announced that “it has made considerable progress analyzing DNA evidence from thousands of rapes and sexual assaults that had been left untested.” The article continues:
In late 2008, Beck’s predecessor, William Bratton, under pressure from victim advocate groups, tasked Beck with getting a handle on the thousands of pieces of evidence that had languished untouched in police storage freezers for years.
Ultimately, the department counted 6,132 untested rape kits, which contain samples of semen, blood, hair or other DNA material collected from victims’ bodies and crime scenes. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced it, too, had thousands of untested kits.
Both agencies committed themselves to clearing the backlogs and to test all viable rape kits going forward. The LAPD cobbled together funds from federal grants, public coffers and private donors to launch an aggressive push to outsource the evidence kits to private labs for testing.
At the same time, More >
In The News: San Francisco Seeks to Tackle Local Backlog of Untested Rape Kits
Dec 8th
One of our goals for the Backlog Blog is to help keep our wider community up-to-date on efforts to reduce the number of untested rape kits in localities all across the United States. From time to time, we’ll post news from around the country that highlights these efforts.
Yesterday, I came across an article in the San Francisco Examiner that discussed new legislation aimed to resolve the city’s backlog. Here’s one highlight from that article:
The Police Department would be required as part of its annual budget submission to report if it is meeting the goal of picking up rape kits within 72 hours of the reported incident, testing evidence within 14 days and testing other DNA evidence from the crime scene within a certain time frame, under proposed legislation.
I also found this quote from a local law enforcement official to be very heartening:
“Rape kits are the most valuable piece of evidence often in these cases. We support this 72-hour collection,” said Assistant Chief Denise Schmitt, who oversees the crime lab. She said the department has begun to meet that goal already.
Read the full article from the San Francisco Examiner.
And check back here on the Backlog Blog in the weeks ahead for More >
State of the Backlog: Illinois
Dec 3rd
Human Rights Watch Report: “I Used to Think the Law Would Protect Me” Illinois’s Failure to Test Rape Kits
A young woman, Stephanie (not her real name), came to see me in my New York office. She had been raped in Chicago two years earlier, and had heard from an advocate there for rape victims that I was writing a report on untested DNA evidence from rape cases in Illinois. I took her for coffee so we could get to know each other before I interviewed her, and we talked about her teaching job, her move to New York City and my new son.
Then, in the middle of our introduction to one another, Stephanie said: “After this experience, I don’t feel safe anymore. I am a tough girl, but it made me feel like if something happened, the law isn’t there for me. It doesn’t really work.”
Stephanie was talking about the fact that the DNA evidence, known as a “rape kit”—collected over a period of hours in the emergency room with medical personnel examining her entire body—had never been tested. Her rapist had never been interviewed by the police or arrested. And now, two years later, she was trying to come More >
