DNA results found in 900+ untested rape kits in Austin police backlog
Source: NBC Affiliate
The Austin Police Department could potentially reopen dozens of rape investigations after getting the results from its backlog of 2,665 untested rape kits. About 35 percent of the rape kits tested brought back positive DNA findings, which could mean as many as 933 cases.
Austin Police outsourced the DNA testing of the untested rape kits to labs in other states to help tackle the backlog. All the testing was completed in April 2018 and now that investigators have the results, they are "reopening and beginning to work cases that correspond with kits that yielded positive results," according to a City of Austin memo released Thursday.
When a rape survivor is assaulted, they are given a forensic exam called a rape kit. Once the kit is tested, if any DNA other than the victim's DNA is found, that means it yielded a positive finding. Investigators then take the DNA and review it for entry into the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS.
Read more: https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/dna-results-found-900-untested-rape-kits-in-austin-police-backlog/1801168478
You want a national crisis? Untested rape kits are a national crisis. The number of violent criminals that would get taken off the street by doing this testing would be worth a hell of a lot more than the phantom criminals crossing the border.
dalton99a
(81,067 posts)efhmc
(14,709 posts)nt
dalton99a
(81,067 posts)and no statute of limitations for minors
apnu
(8,722 posts)Angleae
(4,469 posts)okaawhatever
(9,453 posts)DNA. (Or is some cases someone known by sight, but name unknown, like from a video of a crime). This usually stops the clock on statute of limitations.
marble falls
(56,358 posts)400,000 kits nationwide hadn't been tested and some had been stored in conditions that degraded the evidence.
400,000 Untested Rape Kits Nonprofits Take the Issue on
By Ruth McCambridge Ruth McCambridge | May 7, 2013
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2013/05/07/400-000-untested-rape-kits-nonprofits-take-the-issue-on/
May 2, 2013; Medill Reports
Conversations in this sector focus so unrelentingly on innovation, sometimes we might forget that unless we monitor the implementation of hard-won legislative change, the effort will falter. In the realm of violence against women, Julie Smolyansky recently launched a nonprofit organization to raise awareness and promote solutions for the high number of untested rape kits that remain in police departments across the country, specifically in Cook County.
Julie Smolyansky is the CEO of Lifeway Foods in Morton Grove, Illinois, but she is also a certified rape counselor and now the founder of Test400k. The name refers to the number of untested rape kits that, according to a Human Rights Watch Report, are in storage at police departments around the country.
Some of those kits which cost $1,200 apiece to test are as many as three decades old. This is an extensive, pervasive problem, Smolyansky said. Every time a kit is not analyzed, the perpetrator is free to commit a crime over and over. Everyone is at risk.
Some of the lack of testing may be due to formally dropped cases, but south of Chicago, for instance, the Markham and Robbins police departments have each recently sent 100 untested kits to labs according to Cara Smith who is a Senior Adviser to Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart. Smith said that the external advocacy is important. A law was put into effect in 2010 that requires all police departments in Illinois to disclose how many untested rape kits are in their possession and how many will be submitted and not submitted for testing.
In a posting from the Thomas Reuters Foundation, the problem of those dropped cases is addressed by Sarah Tofte, director of policy and advocacy at the Joyful Heart Foundation and author of the 2009 Human Rights Watch Report on untested rape kits in Los Angeles County, Calif., observes that the reasons that a case has been dropped may sit in the wide discretion afforded police officers. Why are some cases left behind? Inevitably they come back, over and over again, to (the detectives) opinion of the victim, her value to speak, her worth, her position in our society and how likely she is to be believed. This provides a compelling case, she says, for mandating testing. Law enforcement agencies say the number one reason they dont process kits is lack of resources. I would say, in my observations, that the number one reason is less about resources than will and the continued deficiencies in the way that law enforcement in a lot of jurisdictions treat sexual assault cases, Tofte said. The Joyful Heart Foundation, founded by actress Mariska Hargitay, is advocating for state laws requiring that all rape kits be processed and the creation of a national database.
Test 400K is working with testing firms to ensure that they will provide discounts to police departments that need to process a backlog. Smolyansky points out that (t)here should be some kind of scanning code that can track where the package is at any time. We order something on Amazon and we know where it is at any given moment, but sometimes we lose the most precious evidence in our state
We can claim budgetary problems, but the issue of rape is stigmatized. Womens words are never counted. This backlog is symbolic of a bigger cultural issue. Ruth McCambridge
TexasBushwhacker
(20,043 posts)because of these untested rape kits? This is a national disgrace and shows that women's lives and safety just aren't a priority.
marble falls
(56,358 posts)lark
(23,003 posts)Only minority rape should be prosecuted, according to him.
left-of-center2012
(34,195 posts)A republican mayor and republican governor refused to provide the necessary funding.
Now we have a democratic mayor and governor and the tests are being done.
Delmette2.0
(4,143 posts)their part in following up by testing the rape kit.
cab67
(2,963 posts)In several cases, a DNA test not only identified the actual rapist, but excluded someone who'd been convicted of the crime.
The exoneree lost much, the actual criminal cannot be prosecuted, and the victim/survivor is being re-victimized.
In at least one case, an innocent man in prison begged for a DNA test. It was refused until a new DA came into office. The statute of limitations had already lapsed, but the actual rapist had been convicted of a separate sexual assault. He was in prison when the exoneree-to-be first asked for a DNA test. By the time the new DA had the test done, the real perpetrator had been released on parole.
Delmette2.0
(4,143 posts)rape kits. Local state and federal funding must be increased for this.
efhmc
(14,709 posts)So long overdue justice can be done.
Delmette2.0
(4,143 posts)Hassin Bin Sober
(26,272 posts)That might be a tough sell. Thats the very reason the statutes of limitations exist.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,788 posts)Well stated, pertinent and deserving of a much wider audience than just one post.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,272 posts)This is one city out of hundreds.
How about a national laboratory for clearing and categorizing these kits?
cstanleytech
(26,080 posts)OnlinePoker
(5,702 posts)From the list at my link below, it says it costs $1000-$1500 to test each kit. In Austin's case, this would come to $2.6 to $3.9 million to test all of them. In the link in my OP, it also says Austin's lab was shut down for a time after audits showed problems with their testing procedures. I like Hassin Bin Sober's suggestion of a national lab. Not only would it standardize procedures of testing across all jurisdictions, but information could be entered into the national database immediately to find matches in other regions.
http://www.endthebacklog.org/backlog/why-backlog-exists
SpezelEd
(3 posts)I think the title explains it all.
Victor_c3
(3,557 posts)I wonder how this DNA data could impact wrongful convictions...
lostnfound
(16,138 posts)MadDAsHell
(2,067 posts)Why isn't the ACLU all over this?
If you rape me I can turn over any DNA you left behind to the police, what are you objecting to?
MadDAsHell
(2,067 posts)Sgent
(5,857 posts)and their semen is collected as part of the rape kit done when I go to the hospital, I can't see how this violates anything. We allow dusting for prints and scraping skin from under fingernails of strangulation of murder victims.