Members of Congress Push for Stronger Legislation in Using DNA to Catch Rapists
WASHINGTON—Lawmakers introduced legislation Tuesday in the House designed to prosecute rapists more effectively by improving the use of DNA evidence collection.
The Debbie Smith Act, authored by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), would provide over $600 million to eliminate the substantial backlog of DNA evidence collected in sexual assault cases but not tested or entered into the national database. Its companion bill, the DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act of 2003, authored by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), was introduced in January. Speaking at a meeting, lawmakers stressed that it is a lack of resources, not technology or ability, that has caused the backlog.
The money would be spent over the next five years to upgrade DNA analysis, train law enforcement officials and first responders in handling forensic evidence and treating sexual assault victims, and update the national DNA database.
“Despite past successes and the future potential of DNA, hundreds of thousands of rape kits sit in storage because law enforcement officials lack the funds or resources to test them,” Biden said in a statement. The rape kits, which contain collected DNA evidence, are stored away, Biden said, while victims of sexual assault wait for justice, sometimes long past the statute of limitations, which for most states is seven years.
“Each of these kits represents a woman who was viciously attacked, and who may live in fear because her attacker might still be free,” he continued. “We have the technology and the power to change all of that. We have an opportunity and an obligation to do a much better job of using DNA evidence to bring criminals to justice.”
Biden said that DNA testing yields 99.9 percent accuracy, and that with the latest technology, only a drop of blood the size of a pinhead is needed for testing. “But it is useless,” he cautioned, “if there is no money to test the evidence [that is collected].”
According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, a sexual assault occurs in the United States approximately every 82 seconds. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most recent statistics show 458 reported forcible rapes in New Hampshire for 2001, according to the FBI website.
Maloney first introduced the legislation last year, after rape survivor Debbie Smith of Williamsburg, Va., testified at a Government Reform Committee hearing on DNA evidence. Smith’s attacker was identified through such evidence.
“DNA is fresher than a fingerprint,” Maloney said in a statement, reiterating the method’s importance. “It does not forget and it can’t be intimidated.”
The legislation also has received considerable media support from the cable network Lifetime Television. According to executive vice president Meredith Wagner, nearly 80,000 people have signed Lifetime’s on-line petition drive in support of the bills.
The legislative push coincides this week with End Violence Against Women Week.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is a co-sponsor of the legislation.
“This is a win-win issue,” Sen. Hilary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), another of the bill’s co-sponsors, said at the hearing. “Once people understand what’s at stake, there is simply no more argument.”
Published in Foster’s Daily Democrat, in New Hampshire.
