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OPINION
U.S. Department of Justice

Leaving rape kits untested wastes opportunity: Your Say

USA TODAY
A sexual assault evidence kit is logged in a biology lab in Houston on April 2, 2015.

A USA TODAY Media Network investigation identified at least 70,000 sexual assault kits never tested by police. The report covers more than 1,000 law enforcement agencies. Letter to the editor:

Your article regarding unsubmitted sexual assault kits greatly mischaracterizes what is being achieved by the Department of Justice to address the issue (“Tens of thousands of rape kits go untested across USA”).

The article focuses on the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Reporting Act (SAFER), passed in 2013 but still without an appropriation necessary to fund its initiatives addressing the auditing and reporting of kit inventories, not testing.

The article omits or does not explore in any depth Justice Department initiatives already underway, including $100 million the National Institute of Justice provides annually to state and local jurisdictions for DNA forensics and related activities (over 70% of which goes directly to crime labs for testing); a partnership between the NIJ and the FBI Laboratory that allows jurisdictions to submit sexual assault kits to the FBI; and the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s upcoming $41 million in awards under the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative.

By looking at a small piece of a complex issue, the article paints a misleading picture of the Justice Department’s commitment to helping jurisdictions across the country collect, process and test kits, which contain vital evidence for finding justice and redemption for sexual assault victims.

Nancy Rodriguez, director, National Institute of Justice; Washington, D.C.

Comments from Facebook are edited for clarity and grammar:

If a murder is committed, you would want to solve it if a lab test could help you. Even if the perpetrator was thought to be dead, you would still want it solved for the families and the victims. Why would that be any different for a rape? The victims and their families still need that closure.

— Cecilia Nadon Bruck

There is no excuse for not testing rape kits. Every DNA sample tested and logged into the national database is an opportunity to identify a criminal or clear an individual wrongly accused.

I wonder how many murder cases have gone unsolved, and how many innocent people have been executed, because available DNA has not been tested and logged?

DNA testing and the compilation of a national database is a tool that has tremendous possibilities for identifying criminals.

— Jesse R Holt

It takes time, money and trained personnel to process the kits. Once you have a backlog, you need additional resources to do the testing and analysis. This isn’t a one-hour TV episode of “CSI.” It takes time to process kits and get results.

— Jane Daffron

USA TODAY’s article reports: “In Houston, analysis of about 6,600 untested rape kits resulted in about 850 matches, 29 prosecutions and six convictions.” One would hope that there would have been more convictions than that, but it’s still worth the price for those six victims to have peace of mind.

— Rachel Holton

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