Cara at Feministe has a great post up about the failure of law enforcement officials to test rape kits for DNA evidence. A little snippet:

When a victim officially files a criminal report with the police, they are doing it under an implicit contract that the police will do something about it. When submitting to a rape kit collection, women are working under the assumption that their kit will go somewhere and will work towards prosecuting their rapist. It’s unrealistic to expect that undergoing rape kit collection will necessarily result in a conviction — but it’s entirely valid to expect that police will do the best they can with the evidence they have. It’s nothing new for police to violate the trust of those they’re most supposed to protect. But it’s still unforgivably wrong.

Both Cara’s commentary and the original article she cites are worth reading.