DNA analysis in rape cases

[dreya]

:trigger
May be upsetting if you've been sexually assaulted





:trigger

I've been hearing more and more on the news and in the print media about the backlog of DNA analysis with rape kits. (A "rape kit" is basically a collection of evidence which is taken from the victim post-assault. For example, the investigators may collect semen, hairs or other things from the victim's clothing and/or her body to use to test against a suspect's DNA. This can help rule out or confirm the identity of an assailant.) As you may have heard, some rape kits go untested for years, delaying prosecution, closure for the victims, and the possibility of preventing more rapes by the same person in the meantime. This delay is due to lack of funding and lack of manpower.
Does anyone know of a way or place that we can help? Like some sort of pledge drive where you donate the $fifty or whatever it is to test one kit? I've seen stuff about petitions to make more government funding, etc., to test the kits, but nothing about how we can help right now.
Let me know what you think about this topic, and any info you might have about how the problem can be addressed...
dreya :pinkfishy

[Cris Tina]

dreya, the only thing i think of immediately is to award scholarship incentives to students working to specialize in this field of study -- such as is done currently when a person specializes in the field of teaching. also here's some information on the process of dna testing (http://www.scientific.org/tutorials/articles/riley/riley.html) for non-scientists.

[isobel]

:hugon dreya :hugoff
what a good idea! how about calling your local sexual assault/rape crisis center? in addition to offering services, they usually do a lot of advocacy and lobbying. another good call (b/c they will do all the research for you) is to your U.S. Congressional Representative (not state, but US b/c they have access to research services). most congressional offices are very willing to do little research projects like this for constituents (i used to a legislative ass't and did random research all the time).
:love isobel

[dreya]

Thanks for your input, Isobel and Cris Tina!

There's an article with some information about this in this month's Marie Claire magazine - the one with Julia What's-her-name on the cover (Julia Stiles? Styles? Young blond actress...)

[dreya]

I found some sites with more info about this topic, too:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/****************/DailyNews/****************_unsolvedrape_******************** ****.html

(after "sections", the address should be two zero two zero/DailyNews/two zero two zero_unsolvedrape_zero two zero one two five.html)
****************/DailyNews/****************_unsolvedrape_******************** ****.html

http://www.now.org/press/********-********/********-********.html
(numbers = zero three - zero two/zero three-one three)
I hope you will tell me what you think!

[dreya]

Here's part of the first article in case you can't negotiate my links (no numbers rule is at times difficult!)


Evidence Ignored

Thousands of rapists have been convicted and put behind bars thanks to DNA evidence. But for all its effectiveness, DNA testing — a remarkably simple procedure — is rarely used by police in rape cases where there is no suspect.

"In probably ninety percent of the country, if you are raped by somebody who you don't know, by a stranger, the probability is that the rape kit will not get tested at all for DNA," says former New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir.

In fact, an investigation by Twenty/Twenty has uncovered a dirty little secret of law enforcement, unknown to victims and their families. Hundreds of thousands of rape evidence kits sit unprocessed on dusty shelves in police storage rooms around the country simply because police say they can't afford the cost of processing them, which is on average no more than $five hundred per kit.

Safir, who is now a consultant to a company that owns a DNA lab, was stunned to learn that when he was in office, his department was one of the worst culprits, but by no means the only one.

"That's outrageous," said Safir. "It says to a woman who's a victim: We don't care."

Safir said he found out about his department's predicament when Barry Scheck, a prominent defense attorney, came to see him and told him there were twelve thousand unanalyzed rape kits sitting on the shelves of the police department's storage facility.

"I thought he was insane, and I looked into it," said Safir. "I didn't have twelve thousand. I had sixteen thousand"

Nationwide, Safir estimated that there are half a million unanalyzed rape kits that, if processed, could turn out tens of thousands of suspects.

"In this department alone we have about two thousand six hundred unanalyzed rape kits all sitting here waiting for someone to look at them," said Baltimore Police Commissioner Ed Norris. "The people out there that could be arrested and convicted with the evidence are just running around raping other people, killing other people, committing other crimes. And it's just money preventing us from catching them."

Processing the DNA

To see if that really was the case, Twenty/Twenty offered to pay half the cost of processing DNA evidence kits from some fifty unsolved cases, known as "cold cases," to be selected and handled by the Baltimore police. Twenty/Twenty would have no input at all, and would merely record the process step by step.

"This seemed like a great opportunity to push this to the fore," said Norris, who was eager to work with Twenty/Twenty, while some other cities seemingly did not want to draw attention to the problem. "I was extremely excited to get a lot more of my kits analyzed than would be had you not come here," he added.

The fifty evidence kits from Baltimore were sent to one of the country's leading private DNA labs, the Bode labs in Springfield, Va., where Safir helped to arrange testing. Thirty-nine of the fifty kits contained enough DNA to be entered into the state and federal criminal databases.

To the astonishment of the Baltimore police, four of the DNA samples matched with people whose DNA was in the databases. The DNA evidence in two of the rapes led to the same man, who is now facing charges. In another case, processing the rape kit led police to a man who confessed. Also, one man who had been wrongly identified by a rape victim and was awaiting trial, was exonerated.

"I can't tell you how excited we were when we got the news," said Norris. "We physically jumped out of our chairs. This is big stuff."

A Match and Confession

When the DNA results from Twenty Twenty's project came back, police said they were finally able to solve the nineteen eight-nine murder of Charlene Hardin. They identified her attacker as thirty-eight-year-old Anthony Mitchell, who was already serving time for robbery and attempted rape. When confronted with the DNA evidence, Mitchell confessed to raping and killing Hardin twelve years ago, police said.

"Once faced with the dead-endedness, the one-way street of DNA, what is there to argue with?" said Sgt. Roger Nolan, head of Baltimore's Cold Case Squad in the homicide division.

Hardin's long-grieving mother was relieved to finally attain closure in the loss of her only child — though she also expressed frustration that the test wasn't performed much earlier.

Norris was also grateful to have the case solved. "If it was just this one case, it was worth it," he said.

But there were more matches from the tests. The rape of a fifteen-year-old and another rape of a seventeen-year-old had gone unsolved for four years. When the rape kits for both cases were finally tested, police said the evidence led them to Hubert Taylor, whose DNA was in the database after a drug conviction in Virginia.

Taylor has been indicted on charges of first-degree rape in the case of the seventeen-year-old, but has not yet entered a plea.

In another case, the DNA evidence didn't put someone in prison, but freed a man who was wrongly identified by a rape victim.

"It's just as important, more important, to get an innocent man out of jail who shouldn't be there than to put a guilty man in jail," said Norris.

Fixing the Problem

Since learning that hundreds of thousands of these cases are unresolved nationwide — simply because of a lack of funds — a private foundation gave police in Baltimore $three hundred fifty thousand to start processing the DNA evidence that has been sitting on shelves for so long.

On Thursday, the city of Baltimore matched that amount.

"This is the responsibility of government," said Norris. "There's been a lot of talk about it, but little action … I don't think people know that in most cities around the country, their evidence is sitting on shelves and in refrigerators. They just don't know."

[Cris Tina]

a bioengineering nanotechnology initiative program through national institutes of health (NIN) and bioengineering consortium (BECON) was announced on july third two thousand two. (PA-zerotwo-onetwofive) small business's capable of conducting innovation research using the human genome are encouraged to apply.

http://www.nibib.nih.gov/

[dreya]

I'm surprised that you don't hear more about this in the news and everything. It seems like such a tragedy that these crimes are not being investigated fully and criminals are likely left free to rape again. It seems like there would be a huge public outcry. I hope that the situation will improve rapidly...

[pageling]

:hugon dreya :hugoff

Thanks for bringing this up. I too am surprised that there isn't more of a public outcry about this, but I suppose with the current political climate, things like this fall by the wayside and that's a shame. Thank you all for sharing your links and insightful discussion.

love,
paige

[dreya]

There is a good article about this in this month's issue of Ladies' Home Journal - the issue with Goldie Hawn on the cover.