Every two minutes, someone is sexually assaulted in the United States, according to Endthebacklog, a program of the New York-based Joyful Heart Foundation.
Although 60 percent of rapes are never reported, when the evidence of a sexual assault is collected at a hospital or rape crisis center, it is collected in a sexual assault evidence kit or sexual assault forensic exam kit, often called a rape kit.
When a rape kit is tested, the DNA evidence contained therein may be able to identify an unknown assailant or confirm the presence of a known suspect. It also may confirm or deny the victim’s statements. Or it may exonerate innocent suspects or link one suspect to a series of similar crimes, especially through DNA logged in a national database of known criminals and unsolved crimes.
However, many rape kits across the country — the number is reported to be as high as 400,000 — remain untested. The reasons may be myriad and valid, but the evidence from one rape kit that helps to jail one rapist outweighs those reasons.
A report by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) released last week indicated more than 9,000 rape kits across the state had gone untested. The report was produced in response to a law passed earlier in the year by the General Assembly that demanded such an accounting.