Now that the Rube Goldberg machinery of justice has started creaking back to life, law enforcement officials in Detroit have a chance at processing more than 11,000 untouched rape kits that have languished in a police evidence room for years. However, apart from the fact that belatedly broaching the subject of rape…
DNA evidence is tested ASAP after a murder, but between 180,000 and 400,000 forgotten rape kits are collecting dust in police evidence rooms nationwide, even though technology can easily link attackers — who are often strangers and serial rapists — to their crimes. So it's a gigantic step forward that the National…
A program called SANE teaches Illinois nurses how to perform rape kits, and how to testify if they're called as a witness in a rape case. But very few of the state's nurses have gone through the program, because it takes so much time and hospital funds. And this lack of trained professionals is yet another hurdle…
How bad is the problem of rape kits going untested? We don't even know how many are lying around on police department shelves. Several groups in New York have teamed up to put an end to the rape kit backlog, and their first step is to finally get an idea of what they're dealing with.
Thanks to to activists, private donors, and public grants, the LAPD has tested all 6,132 unexamined rape kits in its storage freezers. So far, new identifications number in "the dozens"; some of the 1,000 matches were already convicted.
Last night, Law & Order: SVU ran a Very Special Episode. It took on the subject of rape kit backlogs and starred Jennifer Love Hewitt. And let's just say, in true after-school-special fashion, it drove its point home.
As a teenager, Helena Lazaro was raped; it was over a decade before the authorities properly investigated her case. And the numbers suggest that Lazaro is far from the only one ill-served by the system.
Is it worth a $1,500 investment to keep a rapist from attacking again? Judging from the number of rape kits that are backlogged due to lack of funds, apparently, it's too high a price to pay for women's safety.
Police have released a redesigned rape kit for the first time in 20 years. It includes an instructional video narrated by Mariska Hargitay, who first became involved in supporting victims after she received letters from sex abuse survivors. [NYDailyNews]
• What do you do when you find a skunk stuck in a jar of peanut butter? Call the Skunk Whisperer, obviously! Here is a video of him rescuing the hapless animal from his nutty prison. •
• The president of Mali has announced that he is not going to sign the new family law, which would give greater rights to women, including the right to disobey their husbands and raise the age of marriage to 18.
The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department — already facing an ugly and much-publicized backlog on testing rape kits — has announced the cessation of testing due to funding shortfalls. There's no word when, or if, testing will resume. [UPI]
The State of Texas is currently demanding that rape victims pay for their own rape kits—and if they don't, they face ruined credit and debt collectors. An average rape kit can cost up to $1800.
In the year since Human Rights Watch's Sarah Tofte revealed that the LAPD had 7,000 of America's estimated 400,000 untested rape kits, Nicholas Kristof and a PBS report show it's not much better.
