Rape Kit Evidence Essay

On college campuses in the United States, sexual assault and rape are significant public and social health issues so colleges need to punish the abusers and support the victims. Women are primarily the victims of rape whereas men are usually the ones to attempt any type of sexual assault.. The vast majority of women are sexually assaulted by men with whom they are acquainted. Women are far less likely to report a rape or assault when they know their assailant, thus instance of sexual assaults are greatly under-reported. This essay examines a number of reasons why women fail to report an assault to formal support agencies and examines some of the ways in which social services agencies can reach women

Through the last few years, legislation has tried to create more funding for laboratories to analyze thousands of rape kits for the officers to solve the crime. Crime labs cannot test rape kits for they do not have the funding for it because most funding goes for other crimes that police stations view as more important. When labs do not analyze the rape kits because no one has enough funding for the requirements to be able to test the kits. Funding that “Congress passed the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Reporting Act, requiring three-quarters of federal funding for sexual assault kits be used for testing or taking inventory”(Reilly). In the article written by Reilly, Congress stresses that a certain amount of federal funding will be for testing sexual assault kits. Congress passed an act so all crime labs can get all of the testing of rape kits done. Congress has passed a bill to create extra funding for backlogging of rape kits, while states are trying to raise funding for crime labs to have the ability to test rape kits. Crime labs do not have the resources to analyze thousands of rape kits, which leads to needing more funding from the state to allow them to test rape kits to solve the crime. States do not create a high enough budget for police stations to use on testing rape kits that leaves rape kits to sit in storages for years. For most police stations “ they had a backlog of 1,500 rape kits dating back more than a decade,” have rape kits that date back decades because their labs never receive enough funding for the amount of testing that needs to be done (Beitsch). Backlogging of rape kits has multiplied over decades for the lack of funding from legislation. Rape kits sit in storage because there is no money in the budget. Most victims wait for years before they find out if their rape kit was tested or thrown away. One victim, in particular, was “ led to believe that the kit was

There exists national backlog of untested rape kits. This is an outrage with disastrous consequences for sexual assault victims. Currently, around 400,000 rape kits sit unexamined in laboratories and in police storage across the country—each one of them containing the potential to solve a crime, incarcerate a rapist and provide a victim with the justice they deserve.

Many cases throughout time have not resulted in a conviction being made, for the sole reason that the charges exceeded the statute of limitations. The statue of limitations is defined as “the maximum amount of time allowed for a party to initiate legal proceedings”(Legal dictionary, 2016). Present day, every state is entitled to their own statute of limitations on rape and sexual assault. 34 States currently have a statutes of limitations on rape/sexual assault. Some of these states have a statute of limitations but there is a DNA exemption rule, ruling that if a DNA match is made later than the statute then that case will be exempt from the statute of limitations. Only 16 states have no statute of limitations for rape and sexual assault (Filipovic, 2016, p .A23).

In the United States every two minutes there is someone that is sexually assaulted. In the state of Texas, every 2 in 5 women and every 1 in 5 men have been sexually assaulted. According to TAASA.org, it is reported that “6.3 million Texans have experienced some form of sexual assault in their lifetime.” In 2011, Senate Bill 1636 was passed in Texas where it was required for rape kits to be sent to labs within 30 days. Before Senate Bill 1636, there was no law in the state of Texas that required kits to to be tested within a certain time frame. When bill 1636 was passed it was also required that there be a count on the backlog of rape kits, and it was found that there were 20,000 kits that had not been tested. After seeing that there was a

Testing all backlogged rape kits (also known as sexual assault kits) places colossal burden on government employees. Analyzing all untested rape kits stresses forensic laboratories. Ritter states that, “the demand for DNA testing continues to outstrip the capacity” (40). This information portrays that forensic laboratories that test DNA found in rape kits cannot handle any more kits, since the laboratories already have too much genetic information to test. Because the labs already have a tremendous amount of DNA to test, adding to that amount will only stress workers. Since the

Many times when a person is raped they are too traumatized to actually remember the full details or only remember certain characteristics, or facial features of the person who hurt them. So law enforcement makes an arrest based on the victims memory. Then after convicted it is found out that the wrong person was

This includes analyzing blood and body fluids and removing tissue samples for later testing. They help law-enforcement with investigative information by collect medical evidence, such as trace evidence and secretions, to document sexual assault; and to recreate how a person received injuries. Typical test performed or order by the forensic pathologist may include; X-ray, blood screening, urine analysis, and toxicology report. When finish the information gathered can

After reviewing the YouTube film Rape Kits Special: Inside the Rape Kit Collection Process Natasha Alexenko reviled her horrific event being raped at gun point as a college student. Moreover, Natasha describes in vivid detail being taken to the hospital, and having her body searched for the attacker’s DNA. The examination is commonly done by a specialized individual who is called Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE). (Rape Kits Special: Inside the Rape Kit Collection Process, 2012)

Since DNA testing can help put the guilty and the innocent always, the methods at which DNA testing should be conducted and the people that do the testing are crucial (Salinas, 2006). As many people know, DNA testing can be a very grey area, and the use of DNA testing can become a questionable source when used in court, but for smaller cases it might be the only evidence that can be used (Salinas, 2006). For this case, many different problems can arise when analyzing the DNA from a sperm sample. If the tests aren’t done correctly, then a wrongfully convicted individual can be put away. Firstly, when using a rape kit, the semen is often extracted from the women’s vaginal area. This area can be crass contaminated with her own semen, which could affect the results of the DNA (Soares-Vieira et al, 2007). Secondly, since the victim in the Moon case had a boyfriend at the time and Moon was the one convicted of raping her, there is a possibility that two males could have had sexual intercourse with the victim ultimately bringing up the possibility of cross contamination (Soares-Vieira et al, 2007). With these two possibility’s being present we can expect to find two or more alleles for each marker, which could be vastly difficult to analyze if not done properly (Soares-Vieira et al, 2007). Going back to the

Many real rapists and sexual offenders go uncharged or poorly charged. According to Opposing Viewpoints, “Law enforcement is not a viable solution to campus rape because police do a terrible job of holding rapists accountable. According to a recent analysis of Department of Justice data, only 3 percent of all rapists—not just campus rapists—will ever spend a day in jail. Only 40 percent of all rapes are reported to police, and of those, only 10 percent will lead to a felony conviction with slightly fewer seeing the inside of a jail cell” (Caroline, and Baillee Brown). Rapists are not charged fairly because they don’t have a good way to charge them in court. The victims end up feeling helpless and vulnerable with their attacker walking

Sexual assault kits (SAKs), also colloquially known as “rape kits,” are typically collected when a victim seeks medical care following an assault and consents to completing a kit. A SAK has many steps and can take hours to complete, depending on the injuries sustained by the victim and the training of the staff available on hand. To collect the best evidence possible, the victim will not have urinated, changed clothes, consumed any food or beverage, or showered before a kit is completed. A test typically begins by affirming the victim’s consent and explaining to them that they are permitted to stop, take a break, or skip any step as they feel necessary. Then, the victim is asked to disrobe on top of a sheet and their body is lightly brushed

The collection of evidence is instrumental in the prosecution of any crime, must less an offense as severe as rape. There are various obstacles that the victim of a sexual assault must overcome and not having the proper facilities to assist them when the incident occurs, will influence the victims and offenders. The fact that there is only on center to collect evidence over such a large area also means high caseload investigators. With a backlog of rape kits, this will dramatically affect the prosecution of suspected offenders. It slows down the time for entering the DNA from the kits of the potential suspects into CODIS, which is a national database that allows law enforcement to track criminals across the nation. A study in 2011 from the

In our reading, distance between offender and target and the event that occur can be informative in the way evidence is gathered and used in the prosecution of crime. Distance in crime mapping is usually measured from certain points in order to find other related or similar types of crime (Paynich & Hill, 2014). Looking at a victim of rape, it is my opinion, that a victim of rape and the evidence should be processed right away to keep error from occurring. There are many problems that could be presented while evidence is transported from one place to another. Often times if a rape victim does not get processed at that point the crime occur, they are likely to wash and remove evidence before it can be collected. Programs such as (SANE) which is trained nurses trained to provide crisis care for rape victims. Their jobs to design to evaluate and record any evidence collected from a rape victim, and are often used in criminal cases. They also offer mental help to rape victims. Today, there are more than 600 SAME programs throughout the United States and Canada (Pearsall, 2013).

“People are inclined to think that a sex offender is a sex offender – that they commit one type of crime (Okada.p.190).”