Rape kit
[12] In the 1970s, after the women's movement had gained its first traction, and the media began to cover the reporting of rape and other forms of sexual assault, a sexual assault survivor named Martha Goddard embarked upon a crusade to create a comprehensive rape evidence collection kit and lobby for its adoption by law enforcement agencies.
Goddard founded the Chicago-based Citizens Committee for Victim Assistance to address the issue, researching the process by consulting with medical professionals, law enforcement officials, members of the justice system, and scholars.
[7][10] The kit was first utilized in September 1978, according to a 1980 Chicago Tribune article, when 26 Cook County hospital emergency rooms incorporated its use into their standard practice for gathering trace evidence when treating rape victims.
Based on her presentation, the Department of Justice provided Goddard with funding to travel to help other states begin their own rape kit pilot programs.
[7] In a 2003 interview, Goddard related that through her work in a Chicago teen crisis center, she learned about the very low rate at which rapes resulted in prosecutions.
[9] A rape kit consists of small boxes, microscope slides and plastic bags for collecting and storing evidence such as clothing fibers, hairs, saliva, blood, semen or body fluid.
For example, many hospitals and health facilities in the United States and Canada have Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) who are trained to collect and preserve forensic evidence and to offer emotional support to the victim.
[16][17] According to the International Association of Forensic Nurses, the number of SANE programs has steadily increased throughout the world since its introduction in the United States in the 1970s.
The victim's clothing is carefully examined for trace evidence before each garment is individually packaged with sheets of paper between folds to protect against cross-contamination.
[22] Examiners then collect biological samples of semen, blood, saliva and other bodily fluids by swabbing the victim's genitals, rectum, mouth and body surfaces.
[23] In addition to facilitating the collection of biological samples and injuries, the kit guides the documentation of the victim's medical history, emotional state, and account of the assault.
[31] Damaged evidence is something that is common among rape kits because survivors of sexual assault typically desire to wash themselves as soon as possible following an attack.
Prior to the exam, it is desired that patients avoid using the rest room, combing their hair, bathing, changing their clothes or cleaning up the scene of the assault.
In such cases, rape kits may be instrumental in identifying the assailant through DNA profiling, which research suggests may help lead to an arrest.
[33]: 331 In such cases, rape kit evidence that documents the victim's injuries, e.g., photographs of bruising, is a useful tool to corroborate allegations of non-consensual sexual contact.
For example, a 2016 study of 900 previously untested rape kits in Detroit, Michigan found 259 CODIS hits, which included stranger and non-stranger sexual assault DNA profiles.
A 2016 HuffPost report stated that it was not uncommon for labs to dispose of untested kits, sometimes illegally, in Colorado, Kentucky and North Carolina.
In many locations, the non-availability of rape kits prevents victims from obtaining medico-legal evidence that would otherwise aid in the criminal investigation and prosecution of their assailant.
States may still require victims to submit claims for the rape kit exams to their personal insurance providers, as long as they are not billed for a deductible or a copay.
[53][needs update] In the United States, several organizations have pledged millions of dollars in grants to help fund the analysis of rape kits in forensic laboratories.
The hospitals maintain the collected evidence in a sealed envelope identified only by a number, unless police access its contents upon the victim's decision to press charges.
While the practice had been recommended by the Federal Bureau of Investigation since at least 1999, and was already followed at some health clinics, colleges and hospitals, and in the state of Massachusetts, many jurisdictions up until then refused to pay the estimated $800 cost of the rape examination without a police report filed by the victim.
[60] In 2011, the National Institute of Justice published a report, The Road Ahead: Unanalyzed Evidence in Sexual Assault Cases, providing an overview of deep problems nationwide and the contributing factors to ongoing bureaucratic difficulties.
As of 2014, the federal government estimates a nationwide backlog of 400,000 rape kits, including many from the 1990s when evidence was collected but not tested for DNA due to high costs and more primitive techniques available at the time.
[59] Across Illinois, where law enforcement and prosecutors handle sex crimes differently, a police backlog of nearly 8,000 rape kits accumulated between 1995 and 2009, only 20% of which were tested.
As of January 1, 2011, the Illinois House of Representatives Bill 5976 addresses victims' confidentiality rights and the timely processing of rape kit evidence.
In 2015, the New York County District Attorney's Office announced that they would be awarding $38 million in grants to jurisdictions across the country in order to test backlogged rape kits.
The Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program was established in 2000 at Howard University Hospital in order to address this concerns, after a decade of attempts by Denise Snyder, executive director of the D.C. Rape Crisis Center (DCRCC), to find a major hospital willing to host the program, most of whom either cited economic concerns or declined to respond to her inquiries.
In the episode, detectives investigate the case of a woman, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, who has been raped multiple times by the same man over the course of fifteen years.
The detectives attempt to contact the Special Victims Units in other cities, only to discover that most of them have never tested the majority of their collected rape kits.
