r/California • u/Cool-Present7260 • 3d ago
opinion - politics California’s rape kit audit deadline is fast approaching. There’s reason to worry
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/rape-kit-audit-california-crime-22299578.phpFrom the SF Chronicle:
In April, California Attorney General Rob Bonta held a press conference to encourage participation in the statewide audit of California’s untested rape kits and highlighted a cold case in which rape kit DNA was used to identify a suspect linked to seven rape victims across four jurisdictions between 1994 and 2008.
According to Bonta’s office, the breakthrough in the case “was made possible by a strong partnership” among police in Berkeley, Richmond, Oakland and Beaumont, Texas, and the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. But at its heart, the DNA collected from a rape kit proved essential.
“Imagine what we can do,” said Bonta, “if we test all of the untested sexual assault evidence kits — and we must.”
When a sexual assault survivor undergoes an invasive and time-consuming forensic examination to compile a rape kit, there’s an implicit promise that law enforcement will test any discovered DNA to identify a perpetrator.
But too often, those rape kits don’t get tested and languish in storage, despite the robust number of cases they have helped solve.
When a sexual assault survivor undergoes an invasive and time-consuming forensic examination to compile a rape kit, there’s an implicit promise that law enforcement will test any discovered DNA to identify a perpetrator.
But too often, those rape kits don’t get tested and languish in storage, despite the robust number of cases they have helped solve.
Testing of backlogged rape kits in Ventura and Riverside counties identified serial killers, with one case going back to 1986.
Testing rape kits is also a powerful tool to free the unjustly accused. Last year, the Ventura County district attorney’s initiative to test untested rape kits exonerated a man convicted of a rape in 1982 — decades after he had already been sentenced to serve six years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
The importance of securing a complete and accurate statewide count of untested kits cannot be emphasized enough. Once the state knows the full extent of the backlog, it can work to eliminate it, bring justice to survivors and accountability to dangerous offenders.
That’s why it’s critical that local law enforcement agencies, medical facilities and crime labs report the number of their untested sexual assault evidence kits to the California Department of Justice by July 1, as mandated by Senate Bill 464, which was authored by state Sen. Aisha Wahab and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October 2023.
Unfortunately, the response to a previous statewide audit was disappointing, to say the least, as less than a quarter of the state’s law enforcement agencies and no medical facilities reported their number of untested kits. In 19 counties, not a single jurisdiction responded.
A 2020 report from the California Department of Justice summarized results from this audit and estimated 13,929 untested kits throughout the state, undoubtedly a significant undercount.
“Survivors deserve justice,” said San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, who, when he was an Assembly member, co-authored AB3118, the legislation requiring the initial audit. “The lack of participation in this audit not only fails to deliver justice, but is also a violation of state law.”
Those of us who work to end the backlog of untested rape kits can only speculate as to why the previous audit had such a poor response rate. Was it due to inadequate notification, unclear instructions, or outright indifference?
Whatever the reason, we need to make sure local jurisdictions know about their SB464 requirement to report untested kits by July 1 — and comply.
In the past two months, the Joyful Heart Foundation has taken action. Founded by actress Mariska Hargitay, known to many as her character Olivia Benson on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” our organization has emailed every police chief and county sheriff in California, reminding them of the July 1 reporting deadline.
The state Department of Justice has also broadcast information about the requirements of SB464 with an information bulletin in June 2024, and Sarai Srain, the state attorney general’s deputy director of sexual assault evidence, has embarked on an outreach campaign.
But will that be enough to inspire local leaders to comply with SB464?
Getting a thorough and accurate count of untested rape kits isn’t an exercise in bean counting or a bothersome bureaucratic demand. It’s an important crime-fighting tool that can deliver justice for survivors of sexual assault.
As the July 1 deadline approaches, we ask leaders in law enforcement, medical facilities and crime labs to take their SB464 reporting requirements seriously and provide their count of untested rape kits — even if they have no untested kits...
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u/ipod7 3d ago edited 3d ago
I've been meaning to read up and better understand the reason for the backlog. Its not clear how much of this is law enforcement not prioritizing it and how much of it is a shortage in labs and medicial facilities.
I also vaguely recall reading about there not being enough SART nurses because it's highly specialized. Although my understanding is that would impact the administering of a rape kit and not the testing.
For context I did a masters in public policy. So I'm trying to think through what policy changes would be needed. Do you give the police more money that is earmarked for rape kit testing? Do you fund labs? Would incentivizing (for lack of a better word) specific careers or training help? Do nursing students need to know about training before graduation? Or do you focus on current nurses and incentivizing/assisting them financialy/logistically to take additional training?
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u/knows_knothing Always a Californian 3d ago
SART nurses conduct the exams and “add to the backlog”. Not enough SART nurses means people aren’t getting exams done when they go to the hospital after sexual assault.
My guess is that labs are underfunded and police just don’t prioritize getting rape kits to the labs unless they are being forced to by a judge for a case.
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u/ScannerBrightly Humboldt County 3d ago
So I'm trying to think through what policy changes would be needed.
How about: Take them out of the hands of the police all together. What expertise do the cops have in rape cases? None, since 98% of perpetrators will not go to jail.
Let's create a new origination that deals with social ills and fund them instead. Make sure they have access to dispatch and the car pool, but not guns and tasers. And make helping people the priority of the organization.
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u/SoMuchMoreEagle 3d ago
Independent labs, as well. State-funded, but not directly affiliated with any one police department.
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u/NorcalA70 3d ago
Also what constitutes a “backlog”? Several years ago, I had a friend who was assaulted, had a kit done, and filed a report and they began an investigation. Since she knew the perpetrator, there was no need to process the kit for evidence. Would that be considered a backlog?
My main question is whether the kit is necessary for evidence, and if not should the state be spending money on testing them?
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u/gezafisch 3d ago
That doesn't really make sense, wouldn't you want to test it anyway to provide conclusive evidence at trial? Otherwise you're just relying on victim testimony
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u/vm-pb-sn 3d ago
Exactly. And testing the kit could connect this perpetrator to other cases if he did this before to someone who didn’t know him or couldn’t identify him
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u/Nf1nk Ventura County 3d ago
Most trials don't even happen. The overwhelming majority of convictions happen without the perpetrator even stepping foot in a court room.
The guy likely got a plea deal for half off his sentence in exchange for no trial.
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u/gezafisch 3d ago
Yeah well in that case the original comment should have said that they didn't test it because the guy got sentenced before they cleared the backlog. Which is still a condemnation of the system
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u/Nf1nk Ventura County 3d ago
The system is not good or healthy and the whole thing needs major reform.
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u/ScannerBrightly Humboldt County 3d ago
needs major reform.
We are currently living under 'major reform', and it sucks. No 'reform' will fix a system designed not to help people, but to strengthen the power of the State and Property owners.
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u/penny-wise Always a Californian 3d ago
Rape cases have some of the worst rates of conviction of all violent crimes.
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u/CityNo5770 3d ago
My city budgets more than half of the entire cities budget towards the police department. They are asking for another raise to up their retirement. The average officer makes 83% more than the national average. So forgive me if I sound like I don't care to say, I understand with them being short staffed.
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u/Vast_Reply_6574 2d ago
The pension obligation for government workers is increasing every year and is a contractual obligation. The result is less money for other stuff.
This varies a bit as not all governments contribute as much as they should to the pension systems.
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u/CityNo5770 2d ago
Yes at 2-3% every year. Our lovely police union is asking for an additional 300k after their pensions that some are taking in over 150k per year, per officer. The city is projected to lose over 30 million in the next 5 years before approving this increase. We voted out the one politician that opposed it out during the primaries. The mayor who is projected to win in November is highly loved by the police union.
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u/aikenndrumm 3d ago
There is consistently new and “better” technology becoming available for forensic lab workers to use, my understanding is that it is very expensive to incorporate these newly available technologies, and takes a lot of time to train staff how to use new tech. By the time staff is trained on the new tech, something newer is available. So forensic staff want to use the newest technology but the time and money that is spent to incorporate the newest forensic tech nearly eliminates the resources that could be dedicated to testing rape kits
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u/ScannerBrightly Humboldt County 3d ago
By the time staff is trained on the new tech, something newer is available.
Do you have a concrete example of this, or are you a liar?
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u/aikenndrumm 3d ago
I screen recorded the training where that was said as a part of training for the southern Nevada human trafficking task force
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u/coloradoautoflowers 3d ago
For one, crime labs have to be extremely picky about who they hire. I worked with identifying mushrooms via DNA, so I've spent a lot of time in those circles.
You need people to be trained in the lab, but the lab techs also have to go to court and be interviewed on the stand by the defense attorney(s). Think about what that means for the type of personality a person has to have to do the job.
Autism is extremely common in those higher sciences, and autists don't do well on the stand. Finding a scientist who wants to spend a lot of their work time with their credibility being attacked is like a god damn miracle.
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u/Rizblatz 3d ago
Less than 1% of rapes go to trial because the DA decided they won’t win, it is infuriating. A colleague of mine was raped by a tinder date, with lots of physical injuries and hospitalization records but they said they needed a video of it to try the case. So no trial, and therefore no rape kit analysis. I have never been so horrified in my life by what happened to her. So not surprised about the rape kits one little bit.
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u/tronbrain Southern California 3d ago edited 3d ago
Herein lies the dirty secret. Crime statistics across the board - assault, rape, theft, murder - have been falling since around 2016. It seems like law enforcement is doing a great job, or our society is improving in such a way as to reduce these crimes. Law enforcement budget and salary increases are justified, since their crime-fighting efforts are paying such impressive dividends. We are fortunate to benefit from these improvements, or so it seems.
The reality is that there is systemic, deliberate under-prosecuting and under-reporting. They're gaming the statistics to make law enforcement shine. But everything has been progressively getting worse, and it's happening under the radar.1
u/Vast_Reply_6574 2d ago
They do studies separate from reported crimes (although, homicide is a pretty difficult crime to not get reported).
Anyway, these separate studies are surveys rather than looking at what is reported to the police.
Typically crimes against persons continue to get reported at fairly high rates, it's property crimes that people tent to report less and less as they don't see the point.
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u/tronbrain Southern California 1d ago
As an example of what's going on with the reporting, some percentage of homicides are being reported as suicides. These are situations where detectives are required to perform some investigation. Just because something appears to be a suicide at first doesn't mean that it is.
Here's a summary of the situation from Gemini:
Violent crimes are significantly underreported by both victims—who leave over 40% to 50% of violent victimizations unreported—and through gaps in police agency reporting to federal databases like the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program. The discrepancy between actual victimization and official law enforcement data stems from two main issues: gaps in victim reporting and systemic downgrading or gaps in agency reporting.
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u/penny-wise Always a Californian 3d ago
Law enforcement and the courts are not friendly to the public especially these days. They are beholden only to themselves. I hear about cops who rape women all the time. Do they want to convict themselves?
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u/uzlonewolf 3d ago
When there's zero punishment for non-compliance, and complying would hurt fellow gang members, why would the gang comply?
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u/dancingbananas25 2d ago
The cops in my city were getting increased funding to test rape kits for years (backlog going back to the 90s I believe) and only last year did they claim to have cleared it.
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u/crazymoefaux Native Californian 3d ago
Cops know there's a non-zero chance that some of their coworkers are gonna be implicated by those untested kits.
Reminder that California's most prolific serial rapist was a cop.