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The cost of rape kits is a barrier to use in many locations where the victim is billed for the collection of forensic evidence. Collecting a rape kit reportedly costs upwards of $1,000. [50] In some countries, reimbursement for the cost is contingent on the victim reporting the crime to police.
Even though federal law covers the cost of rape kits, some victims are still charged out-of-pocket costs to have them done. Finding a place to get a rape kit from a specially trained provider can ...
Though normally collected, the rape kits are not always sent off for testing. Reasons given by the police for rape kits not being tested include cost (processing a kit can cost up to $1,500), decisions being made to not prosecute, and victims either recanting or declining to progress the case. [72]
Many "rape kits" are untested because they are never submitted to crime labs or because crime labs have insufficient resources to test all of the submitted kits. [2] [3] [4] In the United States, national surveys of law enforcement agencies suggest there may be upwards of 200,000 untested rape kits in 2015. [5]
The report was located in 2019, as Wayne County – which has received nearly $9.5 million in grants from the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative – worked to clear its rape kit backlog.
These untested kits – estimated by one study to total between 300,000 and 400,000 – have come to be known collectively as “the rape kit backlog.” But that description is misleading.
Since 2015, the program has doled out nearly $350 million to state and local agencies with the goal of testing old rape kits, investigating cases and bringing closure to survivors. But in an ...
An October 2008 audit of the Los Angeles city crime lab by Human Rights Watch revealed that rape kit backlogs increased between 2004 and 2008, despite nearly $4 million in Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Program grants. In January 2007, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) revealed that approximately 5,000 rape kits resided in LAPD storage facilities.