Some Considerations When Making Decisions About Prioritizing Sexual Assault Kits for Forensic Testing

• Date: 01 May 2016
• Published date: 01 May 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12206

POLICY ESSAY

RAPE KIT TESTING

Some Considerations When Making

Decisions About Prioritizing Sexual

Assault Kits for Forensic Testing

William Wells

Sam Houston State University

One of the most pressing challenges confronting the criminal justice system is the

existence of large numbers of unsubmitted sexual assault kits. These kits contain

potentially valuable forensic evidence but have never been submitted to a crime

laboratory for screening and testing. Over the past decade, jurisdictions across the United

States have discovered the existence of this problem and have been working to identify and

implement solutions. In 2015, 52 jurisdictions were awarded funding of more than $80

million through two distinct programs (Bureau of Justice Assistance, n.d.). The funds are

intended to pay for forensic testing and to support criminal justice system responses to

follow up on testing results. Research into the sources of this problem and attempts to solve

it have illustrated that unsubmitted sexual assault kits are not exclusively a crime lab or a

police problem (National Institute of Justice, 2015). The forces behind this problem are

multifaceted, and effective solutions are likely to involve multiple agencies.

In 2011, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) funded action research in two cities,

Houston, TX, and Detroit, MI, to study the problem and identify and implement responses.

These two projects signaled, broadly, the need for social scientists to study crime labs, their

processes, and the manner in which the system uses forensic evidence (King and Maguire,

2009). The projects did not simply provide funds for testing older kits. Rather, the action-

research projects intended to identify the sources of the problem, understand the local

environment so effective responses could be identified and implemented, and test a portion

of unsubmitted kits in both cities. The NIJ-funded projects in Houston and Detroit

contributed to the program of criminal justice, social scientific research on crime labs, and

forensic evidence (Gabriel, Boland, and Holt, 2010; King and Maguire, 2009; Peterson,

Direct correspondence to William Wells, Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology, Sam Houston State

University, Box 2296, Huntsville, TX 77341-2996 (e-mail: wmw005@shsu.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12206 C2016 American Society of Criminology 585

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 15 rIssue 2