Victims of sexual assault are
often advised to have a medical forensic exam and sexual assault kit (SAK; also
termed a "rape kit") to preserve physical evidence (e.g., semen,
blood, and/or saliva samples) to aid in the investigation and prosecution of
the crime. Law enforcement are tasked with submitting the rape kit to a
forensic laboratory for DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis, which can be
instrumental in identifying offenders in previously unsolved crimes, confirming
identify in known-offender assaults, discovering serial rapists, and
exonerating individuals wrongly accused.
However, a growing number of media
stories, investigative advocacy projects, and social science studies indicate
that police are not routinely submitting SAKs for forensic testing, and instead
rape kits are placed in evidence storage, sometimes for decades.
This review
article examines the growing national problem of untested rape kits by
summarizing current research on the number of untested SAKs in the United
States and exploring the underlying reasons why police do not submit this
evidence for DNA testing.
Recommendations for future research that can guide
policy and practice are discussed.
Purchase full article at: http://goo.gl/JvRkNe
By: Campbell R1, Feeney H2, Fehler-Cabral G3, Shaw J4, Horsford S5.
- 1Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA rmc@msu.edu.
- 2Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.
- 3Harder+Company Community Research, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- 4National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, USA.
- 5School of Marriage and Family Sciences, Northcentral University, Scottsdale, AZ, USA.
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