Finding Justice for Sexual Assault Victims

This Congress, I’ve introduced legislation with Senator Al Franken to clear the backlog of untested rape kits.  We’ve learned that there are tens of thousands (one estimate has the number as high as 180,000) of untested kits sitting in law enforcement warehouses. 

This backlog means that all too often sexual assault victims are denied justice.  It's unacceptable that rape kits sit around for months or even years while the perpetrators remain on the streets potentially harming others.

The rape kit backlog also presents serious consequences for law enforcement and public safety.  For instance, The New York Times highlighted a California case where a rapist struck twice while the rape kit for one of his earlier victims sat unprocessed at a Sacramento crime lab. 

Our bill addresses the national rape kit backlog and several other problems that work to deny justice to victims of sexual assault including the denial of free rape kits to survivors of sexual assault.  Many jurisdictions receive federal funds to perform rape kit tests.  So, we’re looking to determine just how these jurisdictions are using the money.  Our bill would also require them to report back to the Justice Department on the backlog levels and how much of their grant funds have been used to analyze DNA from sexual assault cases.   Jurisdictions that fail to report risk losing half their federal funds from this program. 

Victims deserve justice in a timely manner.  And, when it takes approximately one week to process a DNA evidence sample, there is no reason rape kits shouldn’t be tested in a timely manner.   Our goal is to make sure that prosecution takes place to make sure that rapists don't get back on the street again to commit more crimes.