Untested rape kits gather dust across region
- More than a hundred sexual assault kits in the region’s evidence lockers that remain untested.
- In New York state, police agencies outside of New York City are not required to test sexual assault evidence.
- Nationally, victim advocates are pushing for testing of all rape kits.
Sitting in evidence rooms across New York are hundreds of untested rape kits, some possibly holding clues that could link criminals to the crimes.
In the region, more than a hundred sexual-assault kits in evidence lockers remain untested, some stashed away for as long as 10 years. Several departments in the region keep no count of the number of untested kits in their possession.
Last week, the USA TODAY Media Network — through hundreds of requests under state open-records laws — revealed more than 70,000 untested sexual-assault kits in the custody of more than 1,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide. The number identified may be only a small fraction of the national accumulation that likely reaches into the hundreds of thousands across 18,000 law enforcement agencies.
Those kits contain powerful forensic evidence that could be used to identify assailants, exonerate wrongly accused suspects and confirm the accounts of survivors.
Instead, they remain in storage.
New York doesn’t require authorities to test all sexual-assault kits. But some in law enforcement encourage sending all sexual-assault kits for analysis and entry into a federal database for the sole reason of possibly linking the suspect with other unsolved rapes or crimes.
According to national crime statistics, only one out of every three rapes are reported to authorities. Seven out of 100 lead to an arrest, and just two of every 100 rapes lead to a felony conviction.
In Johnson City, the police department’s evidence room holds 26 untested rape kits — some dating back 10 years.
Police Chief Brent Dodge estimates two or three rape kits collected by his department are stowed away each year. Each kit was taken at the start of a sexual-assault investigation, he said, but some were shelved and untested in cases that weren’t prosecuted.
Across the region, many police departments are holding on to rape kits that were never sent to a state crime lab for testing. The results of those tests could produce DNA matches to assist with criminal prosecutions, but law enforcement officials say it’s not always a necessary step.
“For each of these rape kits of ours, the suspect was identified, so there was little to be gained by sending the kits to get tested,” Dodge said. “We may hang on to them until the statute of limitations expires or until there’s an appeal.”
For law enforcement officials, rape kits can represent important evidence that could bolster the accusations of a victim. They also could help investigators sort through sometimes convoluted accounts on both sides, to help determine whether the allegations ought to result in a prosecution.
Over the past decade alone, Congress has approved enough money to reduce the nation’s backlog of DNA evidence testing to have tested more than 1 million sexual assault evidence kits. At about $1,000 per kit, testing sexual assault kits is not free, and the USA TODAY count of untested kits indicates that many smaller departments — those least able to afford to pay — have piled up hundreds of untested kits.
So far, however, despite evidence that the number of untested rape kits could number into the hundreds of thousands coast to coast, the vast majority of the money is not reaching local and state police authorities where the abandoned rape evidence could be tested and the problem reduced.
“If we’re able to test these rape kits, more crimes would be solved, more rapes would be avoided,” Vice President Joe Biden said in March, announcing an additional $41 million in grant funding as part of a White House initiative to address the problem.
Notwithstanding the funding and the attention of policymakers, the effort to quantify and reduce the number of untested sexual-assault kits is not anywhere close to complete.
In the region, law enforcement officials have maintained that rape kits are routinely sent for testing if police believe they have a viable allegation or criminal case to pursue.
“These kits can be the evidence that can clinch the case, because it’s physical evidence that can be traced to a person,” said Broome County Sheriff David Harder. “But there’s no risk of us losing evidence if we don’t send them; it depends on the circumstances of the case.”
Among the larger departments:
•The Broome County Sheriff’s Office has 12 kits stored as evidence that were never sent for analysis, according to records provided by the county.
•The Chemung County Sheriff’s Office has 14 untested kits dating back to 2005.
•The Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office has up to 10 untested rape kits.
•The Tioga County Sheriff’s Office reported 11 to 25 untested rape kits.
•The Binghamton, Ithaca and Elmira police departments reported they did not maintain any records pertaining to untested rape kits.
In a majority of rape cases the Binghamton police department investigates, the victim and the suspect are known to each other, according to police Capt. Jack Collins.
Assistant Binghamton Police Chief William Yeager described rape kits as valuable evidence. The department normally sends kits to be tested at an Albany crime lab for any active rape case investigation, he said, unless the suspect’s identity is not in question or if the allegations are not prosecuted.
“We’re definitely on top of it,” Yeager said. “If the victim is adamant this (rape) happened, then we send it up for analysis.”
No state requirements
In New York state, police agencies outside of New York City are not required to test sexual-assault evidence, and no state law exists requiring agencies to keep track of how many untested kits are in their evidence rooms.
The state does not mandate testing of new or old rape kits, according to records.
After more than 10,000 untested sexual assault kits were discovered in Detroit, a landmark study exploring the causes of the failure to test the kits faulted police for displaying “negative, victim‐blaming beliefs” about victims.
This year, the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services conducted a voluntary survey of its roughly 550 police agencies. Of those, 170 responded and provided the state a range of how many rape kits were still untested.
Janine Kava, a DCJS spokeswoman, said the survey’s purpose was for educational, not statistical, purposes. She said the survey’s results showed no red flags.
“This is a local police department issue,” Kava said. “There has been much discussion about the issue of untested rape kits, and we wanted to get a sense of what was happening in New York state.”
Kits can be useful evidence
For prosecutors, DNA profiles that are produced by testing rape kits can represent important pieces of evidence.
That can be used to counter at least one viable defense in a sexual-assault case, Broome County District Attorney Gerald Mollen said, but it also does not always mean “the case is closed.”
Reasons why kits would not be tested include an unfounded report or claim of rape, an uncooperative victim, or cases that the district attorney deemed as not prosecutable, according to law enforcement officials.
Mollen said it would be troubling if there are rape kits in evidence lockers at local police departments that should be tested, but he does believe procedures are being followed properly.
There ought to be “a very strong preference” to sending every rape kit to be tested, he said, but sometimes, the circumstances in a case can dictate otherwise.
He used a hypothetical example: if a 16-year-old girl accused her 17-year-old boyfriend of rape and then changed her mind about her willingness to proceed with a prosecution.
At that point, Mollen said, the prosecutors have to make a tough decision. It’s a question of this girl’s right to privacy regarding material collected from her in a rape kit, if it should be examined, and to balance that against the interests of the criminal justice system.
“Privacy of the complaining witness is certainly something that has to be taken into account,” Mollen said. “But what if the perpetrator is doing this to other victims? You have to be sensitive and explain to the victim why it might be important for other women and the community to have it tested.”
Victim advocates weigh in
Nearly every week, at least one rape victim walks through the doors of the Crime Victims Assistance Center on Robinson Street in Binghamton.
Raini Baudendistel, the center’s executive director, estimates her office assists 60 to 70 rape victims each year. Roughly 80 percent of them already knew the perpetrator before being raped, she said, and it’s a rare instance where a victim is assaulted by a complete stranger.
When it comes to the intrusive process of collecting the rape kit from a victim and the question of testing, Baudendistel said, it’s unquestionable that the results could help solve cases like these.
Nationally, advocates are pushing for testing of all rape kits.
Baudendistel said she finds herself in the middle of that debate, but her agency believes the victim’s voice is ultimately what counts.
“To me, the rape kits are evidence, and if (police) find a fingerprint, they’re going to test it — so these should be tested, too,” Baudendistel said. “But if the victim has the kit done, and then doesn’t want to move forward, that should be respected.”
Tiffany Greco, education director for the Advocacy Center in Ithaca, echoes those sentiments. She also said the absence of any DNA evidence in a case does not always mean a rape was not committed.
Greco said pushing to educate about preventing sexual violence can be just as important as securing resources to test these kits for potentially useful evidence. Her agency advocates education on what makes for a healthy relationship, what consent means and how to recognize the signs of abuse.
What sometimes arises in those discussions, she said, is whether the responsibility to protect others rests on any part of the victim’s shoulders.
“Our priority is the individual, the victim, in front of us,” Greco said. “What we say to them is it’s not your responsibility to keep him from raping others — it’s his responsibility.”
Follow on Twitter @PSBABorrelli. Steve Reilly, of USA TODAY, contributed to this story.