With rape kits that were not tested piling across the nation The Department of Justice wanted action and convictions. A few years after the USA TODAY investigation found that many of the same issues persist.
On summer nights, a couple of years apart, two ladies went to bars the downtown area of Austin, Texas. When they returned home in safety, they both were brutally raped.
One of her rapists was familiar with her. He was a friend she told her who noticed she was drunk and offered her an opportunity to ride the handlebars on his bicycle prior to sexually assaulting her she was slipping between states of consciousness.
But the other one did not. She claimed to police that she was assaulted by strangers who put her on their legs and arms while one of them raped her.
The investigation did not lead to an arrest.
A few years later, in 2021 Austin police were able to uncover a major new clue: DNA discovered on the jeans of a woman was identical to DNA found on a swab taken from the neck of the other. It was believed that both women were raped by the same individual who was an alleged serial victim of rape.
This is exactly the kind of significant change that officials across the nation hoped for when they vowed to investigate sexual assault cases that was largely ignored for many years in police storage rooms. Since 2015 authorities from the U.S. Department of Justice has distributed over 350 million dollars in grants to 90 state and local agencies under the National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. The department promised to get rapists in jail and provide victims with long-awaited answers.
In reality, an USA TODAY investigation discovered cases hit the same roadblocks when victims first stepped forward: kits that were not tested , haphazard or superficial reviews conducted by prosecutors and police, and a refusal to inform individuals about what happens to evidence gathered from their own bodies. According to the Justice Department’s figures the program has resulted in testing of 100,000 kits and 1,500 convictions thus far more than half of them of which have come from two agencies. However, others have had mediocre results.
The case is in Charlotte, North Carolina, the backlog of more than 2,300 kits has resulted in 14 convictions.
Within Mobile, Alabama, a backlog of more than 1,100 kits has resulted in convictions for eight men.
In Austin officials were faced with a backlog of nearly 4,400 kits. They’ve secured only one conviction.
Following that the 2 Austin cases were confirmed by DNA tests, a detective went through the case files. Police reported that they had contacted the woman who reported having been raped by an unknown person however she didn’t want to discuss the matter with them, so the case was closed. Police did not inform her that the man who was linked to her kit may be the serial victim of rape.
In the second case the police failed to complete their review, but did absolutely nothing.
Krystal Allison, who was the person who wrote the report did not realize that the friend she claimed was raped had been connected to a different sexual assault, until USA TODAY reached out to her in the summer.
“That seriously sent chills down my spine,” Allison stated, her voice shaking. “Nobody has ever reached me in any way. I have no idea what it is.”
America’s untested rape kits have piled in the United States over the time.
The boxes were about similar to a large hardcover volume included evidence of a sexual assault. They contained dried swabs of saliva, blood, semen hair, hair strands or debris that was scraped off beneath fingernails. They were all taken from a person, mostly females and girls, over an hour-long examination. The samples were discarded without being tested for DNA. The evidence was piled up in the storage areas, tangible evidence of the failure of law enforcement agencies to help victims and hold perpetrators accountable.
The test of the kits was meant to be the first step towards correcting the mistake. In some areas that were awarded federal funds, nothing like was that the case.
The majority of grantees carved out tests with exceptions and left their kits in the unprocessed pile for another time. Within one California County, the officials claimed that they had cleared their backlog however, they did so after finding more than half of their kit not suitable to be tested.
In many instances, authorities have done nothing more than sending the DNA kits to a laboratory, analyzing the results, and then closing the file. In Maryland according to a report from the state the police departments have displayed “significant reluctance” to reopen investigation and have even said explicitly that they do not care about DNA matches.
Original Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2024/09/19/doj-rape-kit-testing-program-results/74589312007/
Additionally certain officials have gave up on providing victims with answers as to what transpired with their rape kits or apology for the length of the testing process required. One Kansas police department has attempted to contact just 17 victims of more than 1100 kits for sexual assault. A spokesperson for the agency has said that there are occasions that DNA testing has revealed suspects’ names in the very first instance, but the victims haven’t been given the information because authorities aren’t convinced that their cases could be investigated.
Noel Busch Armendariz, an University of Texas at Austin professor and researcher who has conducted interviews with women with backlogs of kits, said it’s disappointing that the victims – time and again – are being overlooked.
“Survivors of sexual assault mostly feel betrayed by the silence around what happened to them,” she said.
Tell us about your experience: If you have information about a rape incident which was not dealt with or you’ve had knowledge of the system, let us know here.
