A "rape kit" in the U.S. is the extensive set of evidence procured during an hours long examination of a rape victim after they are assaulted. Each rape kit is a trove of evidence of sexual violence. That's why it's absolutely appalling that there are tens of thousands of them sitting in evidence lockers around the country, some for many years. What that actually means is many rapists are likely walking free.
Will you sign the petition to demand every state prioritizes testing their backlog of rape kits immediately?
Many police department budgets in the U.S. are bloated. They contain so much money for things like militarization, unnecessary overtime, and payouts from lawsuits because the officers harm people so often. None of that really helps make communities safer. Identifying people who've committed violent crimes, on the other hand, would actually help make communities safer. That's why it's so astounding that some states have over 10,000 untested kits (California, for example).
You can find an interactive map here with tallies of how many untested kits each state has, as well as whether they have implemented any reform on this process, thanks to End The Backlog.
We know that victims of sexual assault very rarely report the incident. One of the reasons for that is the fear that it won't be taken seriously, so why go through the retraumatization of reporting? One way we can start to reverse that societal understanding is by testing every single existing rape kit. We need to show that we value identifying and holding to account violent sexual offenders.
We also know that many rapists are repeat offenders, meaning that it's more than likely that multiple rape kits exist that have evidence of the same rapist and that person could be walking free, able to attack more people. We need to prioritize identifying these people so we can intervene and prevent them from harming anyone else.
Going through the process of having a rape kit done can be extremely difficult for a victim. They are required to not shower or clean themselves up at all after being assaulted for many hours while nurses meticulously photograph their bodies and take potential DNA evidence from their genitals, skin, hair, even under their nails. It's disgusting that we put victims through such an arduous process only to never test the evidence.
Sign the petition to tell every state with a backlog of rape kits to prioritize testing them immediately.
