We’ve written about problems with rape kits going untested before, but this news out of L.A. is just incredible. Not only is LAPD sitting on a backlog of 7,000 rape kits because the city won’t give them the money to hire the people they need to test them, but they failed to do the paperwork that would have extended the statute of limitations on more than 200 kits!
If you’re a citizen of L.A., get on the phone and start protesting – demand that more of your tax money go to testing evidence, because having “more officers on the street” is useless if the evidence they gather is never used to solve the crime.
If you live elsewhere, do some research and figure out how your city and state are doing in terms of getting kits tested in a timely fashion. It’s a problem all over the country, sadly, and it’s allowing rapists to wander at large and assault again and causing survivors to wait for years for a closure that may never come.
Thanks to Sarah M for alerting me to the Jezebel post on this ridiculousness.
I read about this over at the curvature. It broke my heart. When you think of how difficult it is for a woman to submit to this testing in the first place after being so cruelly violated, only to have that information not tested just screams wrong on so many levels. They claim it is about money but I believe more is at stake than this. This is symptomatic of how little our culture truly values women.
This is truly disgraceful! Why is violence against women not taking seriously in this country?
Hey Renee,
Definitely! I always hear people say that we can’t do this or that because of the cost, but of course we have the resources to do all kinds of things if we rearrange our priorities. Our culture wastes resources on the dumbest things, and then can’t provide for people’s most basic needs. I know you’ve talked about this on your blog before… Our cultural priorities are just completely out of whack.