Neglected 'rape kits' demoralize victims: Our view

For nearly a decade, key evidence in the rape of a 9-year-old girl — abducted, dragged to a rooftop, sexually assaulted and knocked unconscious by a brick in 1993 — sat among a mass of untested rape kits in a New York Police Department freezer. Under a new policy in the late 1990s, the department began testing 16,000 long-forgotten kits and feeding the DNA results into a federal database of criminal offenders.

The DNA in the girl’s rape kit matched that of a man named Michael J. Brown, who was arrested for her assault and convicted in 2005 — one of 2,000 matches to known criminals discovered in the neglected kits.

Brown’s conviction is a testament to the value of processing untested rape kits, which have stacked up in small towns, rural counties and major cities for years.  A USA TODAY Media Network investigation identified 70,000 untested kits in 1,000 police agencies, just a fraction of the nation's 18,000 law enforcement agencies.

Each kit represents an individual who reported being sexually assaulted, went to an emergency room or clinic, and underwent an invasive procedure where nurses typically scraped nails, photographed injuries, and collected  semen and hair to place in a “rape kit” meant to help find and prosecute the attacker.

Too often, though, all that added trauma produces potential evidence that falls into a black hole. The failure to test not only demoralizes victims but also damages public safety, as opportunities are missed to catch criminals, find serial rapists through DNA matches and perhaps exonerate a wrongly convicted defendant.

A handful of cities — Cleveland, Detroit and Houston — that are cleaning up their backlogs have shown the value of doing so. In Detroit, where about 10,000 old kits discovered in 2009 have been tested, authorities identified more than 2,400 suspects, including 456 serial rapists, and secured 20 new convictions.

Despite such successes, too few jurisdictions have followed these cities' lead. Some state and local agencies didn't even know how many untested kits they had, USA TODAY reporter Steve Reilly found in the investigation. Prompted by journalists’ questions, some began counting, the first step toward change.

Most states and agencies also lack written policies on how to handle rape crime evidence or requirements that decisions be documented. Individual detectives make testing decisions, leading to inconsistencies. Police are loath to give up that authority, even when it is being misused.  One of the most cited reasons not to test a kit, for example,   is “uncooperative victim.” But failing to test can trigger lack of cooperation. Traumatized victims might be persuaded to cooperate if their kits were tested and a suspect identified.

A handful of states, such as Michigan and Texas, have passed laws mandating that all kits be tested on strict deadlines — a step forward but one that could prove unworkable. Law enforcement agencies elsewhere have balked at both the cost (about $1,000 per kit) and losing all discretion. In California, for example, the statewide sheriff's association lobbied successfully for the governor to veto a mandate in 2011.

Requiring every kit to be tested isn't necessarily the answer. There's little point, for example, in mandating testing in cases where both the accuser and accused agree that sex occurred, and the issue is whether it was consensual. A good start might be mandating testing in all cases involving a juvenile or a weapon.

Because so many local jurisdictions have dropped the ball, what's needed most are statewide rules that establish testing criteria and priorities, with input from prosecutors, police and advocacy groups. Victims of sexual assault deserve nothing less.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

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