"No Downside Seen in Submitting All Rape Kits for Testing." Appeal-Democrat. N.p., 30 Jan. 2016. Web. 08 Feb. 2016.
This article discussed how law enforcement leaders may consider changing policies for rape-kit testing in sexual assault investigations. Rape-kits is the evidence collected from the bodies of the rape victims. With the victim’s consent, a sexual assault response team collects hair, blood and urine samples, and DNA swabs. These kits are then submitted as evidence to investigation agencies, but many kits do not even make it to the labs for analysis.
This is because victims already go through a lot, both physically and emotionally, and oftentimes, investigators feel that it is not necessary if, for example, a case has already been made-- like if the suspect confesses-- or if the case has been terminated for some reason. However, even if the rape-kits are not needed to solve particular cases, the article discusses why it is better to test all rape-kits instead of leaving them on lab shelves untested. One argument includes that not testing rape-kits can give victims even more of a reason to think that they are not being taken seriously or that they are doubted. This is already something that victims believe and it contributes to the reason that so little rape cases are reported. Another reason that they believe all rape-kits should be tested is that the data will go into a larger database and potentially shed light onto other cases. This good effect people on a much greater scale than you would initially suspect.
I think that this article made some very good points and I liked the fact that the author recognized untested rape-kits as something that could look like bias in the scale of importance in sexual assault. I think the article did a good job of giving an overview of the topic and also the author clearly expressed his opinion. However, the article was heavily biased and did not express too much of an opposition, which is something that I wish had been different.
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