Progress on the Rape Kit Backlog in New Orleans
Oct 19th
The New Orleans Police Department (NODP) is making progress on its backlog of over 800 untested rape kits. Various local news agencies reported that the NOPD expects that all kits, some of which date back to the 1980s, will be tested by early 2012.
So far, the department has tested about 300 of the kits, which have already yielded 12 DNA matches to profiles in the national DNA databank, CODIS. The NOPD has already made two arrests and expects to make many more as a result of the testing the backlogged rape kits.
“There are going to be a lot of individuals who are going to be arrested for sexual assaults that they thought they got away with,” said New Orleans Police Commander Paul Noel.
The department is working with the Louisiana State Police and Marshall University in West Virginia, which are contributing time and resources needed to test the hundreds of kits.
Nola.com reports that the NOPD is also working through another backlog: cases involving rape kits that yield DNA matches that were never investigated. When Noel took over as commander of the sex crimes division in July 2010, there were 400 such matches that were never properly investigated because police had downgraded More >
FBI to Revise Definition of Rape in Uniform Crime Report
Oct 17th
After a decades-long campaign by women’s rights advocates, the FBI recently announced that it would revise the definition of rape in the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). Written more than 80 years ago, the current definition is problematic for several reasons.
The only type of sexual assault on which the UCR currently collects data is “forcible rape,” defined as “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will.” That definition excludes a number of crimes, including rapes where the victim was drugged or under the influence of alcohol, and all male victims of sexual assault.
Given the definition’s exceedingly narrow scope, many sexual assaults are not counted as rapes in yearly federal reports that are used to track crime rates in the United States. This under-reporting misleads the public about the prevalence of rape and results in fewer resources for both preventing future sexual violence and supporting survivors.
In mid-September, members of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), including representatives of police agencies from various cities, met with FBI officials and survivors’ advocates to discuss making the definition more inclusive. The proposed change must now go through an FBI working group later this month and an FBI advisory group in December.
Campaigning by advocates More >
Help Joyful Heart Win $1 Million to Help End Backlog
Oct 4th
Joyful Heart has been selected as one of 25 charities to compete for the chance to earn $1 million from Chase Community Giving’s American Giving Awards. With such an extraordinary gift, we could make a big difference for survivors of sexual assault. There is one day left to help us make a difference of $1 million.
Every year, tens of thousands of individuals report a sexual assault to the police. After an assault, a survivor undergoes an invasive exam that lasts between four and six hours to collect DNA and forensic evidence, which then goes into a “rape kit.”
The federal government estimates that over 200,000 untested kits are currently sitting untouched in storage facilities nationwide. Each untested kit represents a missed opportunity for healing and justice for a survivor. Eliminating the backlog would send a powerful message to survivors that their cases matter and that the criminal justice system has not forgotten them.
Joyful Heart would use the $1 million award to continue and enhance its efforts to end the rape kit backlog in cities across the country. We plan to create replicable victim-centered best practices, which will foster trusting and open relationships between survivors and responders; to completely overhaul endthebacklog.org, the only site More >
New Case in Illinois Is a Deeply Troubling Reminder of the Importance of Testing Rape Kits
Sep 25th
A corrections officer in Illinois has been charged with sexually assaulting a 10-year-old child in 1997 after a rape kit that was part of a backlog in Harvey, Illinois was finally tested. The case is another powerful and deeply troubling example that every untested rape kit represents the failure to bring justice to a survivor and to protect the public.
The victim submitted to a sexual assault evidence collection–or rape kit–exam in August of 1997 after reporting numerous instances of being sexual assaulted by her step-father, Robert Buchanan. Buchanan was questioned but never charged by the Harvey Police Department and went on to serve as a corrections officer in a local jail for over a decade.
This kit was one of 200 untested rape kits that the Cook County State’s Attorney office, the sheriff’s office and the Illinois State Police recovered in a 2007 raid, according to various news agencies, including NBC, CBS, ABC, the Chicago Tribune and The Huffington Post.
Under the 2010 Illinois Sexual Assault Evidence Submission Act, the first of two state-wide laws in the country that mandate law enforcement to track and test all rape kits, the Illinois State Police (ISP) was required to collect data on all untested rape More >
Update: California Bill Heads to Governor’s Desk for Signature
Sep 13th
AB 322, California’s new rape kit bill, has been approved in the California State Assembly. It is now awaiting Governor Jerry Brown’s signature.
An extremely difficult fiscal climate in California’s government has narrowed the scope of the bill significantly since it was first introduced in the Assembly. Originally, and much like the laws recently passed in Texas (2011) and Illinois (2010), the bill would have required all jurisdictions to report on the number of untested rape kits in their storage facilities on an annual basis and to test all kits in a timely manner if sufficient resources are available. The bill now limits the counting and processing of rape kits to a pilot program in the ten counties with the lowest arrest rates for sexual assault.
The bill comes after several years of news about the backlogs in numerous jurisdictions in California, including Los Angeles City and County, which once had a backlog numbered at over 12,500 untested kits. To catch up on the progress of the state of the backlog in California, be sure to read past articles on the Backlog Blog here.
