Senate dysfunction leaves 400,000 rape kits untested in police labs

Senate dysfunction leaves 400,000 rape kits untested in police labs

Law enforcement is in need of funding to clear backlog of untested kits sitting in warehouses

A Senate budget battle in Washington D.C. is responsible for holding up Justice Department funding that could put away rape suspects that are roaming the streets of America. Nationwide there are an estimated 400,000 rape kits sitting in police crime labs that are untested, mainly due to the high cost to process DNA evidence.

Lawmakers proposed a $180 billion spending bill earlier this year. That bill combined the budgets for the departments of Justice, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce and Agriculture. The bill was pulled by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.after Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and the GOP argued against a plan that would have denied them the chance to easily make changes to the measure.

In June a smaller $41 million bill to fund rape kit testing passed the House and made it to the Senate floor. However, the rape kit relief fund became a victim itself to the U.S. senate’s bickering and dysfunction, with both sides in disagreement over amendments and vote thresholds and no discussion of justice for rape victims. This smaller spending bill was also pulled by Democrats. This left the Justice Department with no money and its hands tied. Unable to help the nations law enforcement agencies with rape kit funding.

There is no argument the backlog of untested rape kits has left serial rapists roaming the streets of the U.S. This has led to countless additional victims.

According to Kym Worthy, Wayne County Prosecutor, Detroit has a backlog of approximately 11,000 untested rape kits, some of which are over 30 years old. The crime lab has been able to test 1,600 kits, in those results they found 127 serial rapists, Worthy says that the rapists from the kits they have tested, have raped again in nearly half the states in the U.S. and District of Columbia, showing the pervasiveness of the problem is throughout the country.

Prosecutor Worthy pointed out the case of serial rapist Michael Eugene Swygart. He was just sentenced to 40 to 75 years in the Michigan Department of Corrections for rape, but the serial rapist could have been caught decades ago if DNA from a 1988 rape had been tested sooner.

Rick Bell, chief of the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s special investigations division, also found that law enforcement in the Cleveland area had similar results as Detroit, after finally testing 4,400 kits that had gone untested between 1993 and 2010.

In 2004, Law and Order SVU actress, Mariska Hargitay founded The Joyful Heart foundation, an advocacy group for sexual assault survivors. This foundation has been pushing for federal funds to help with the hundreds of thousands of rape kits sitting in police warehouses or evidence rooms throughout the country. According to Joyful Heart data, Phoenix and Las Vegas are reported to have nearly 7,500 kits waiting to be tested. Other U.S. cities such as Memphis report more than 11,000 kits.

Speeding up testing of rape kits is important to law enforcement. Unlike Homicide, in most states, sexual assault crimes have a statute of limitation. The delay in testing can allow offenders to escape prosecution if the statute of limitations expires before a kit is finally tested.

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