States Could Get More Money to Help Put Rapists Behind Bars
WASHINGTON– Fourteen years ago, Virginia resident Debbie Smith was brutally raped in the woods behind her home. Smith wouldn’t learn her attacker’s name or whereabouts for six and a half years – the time it took before the authorities tested her rape kit, which held critical DNA evidence gathered after her assault. Her attacker was already behind bars for another offense. But every day until then, Smith said she lived in fear.
She doesn’t want rape victims to have to wait that long for closure again.
Smith’s story helped spark legislation now moving through Congress that would give state and local police departments $400 million over five years to test rape kits. The bill would also provide $150 million to train forensic nurses and $50 million to train police officers on the proper collection and handling of DNA evidence. Another $10 million would go toward expanding the FBI’s national DNA database.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who introduced the bill in the Senate last year and reintroduced it in January, said he “can’t think of any other single piece of legislation that could pass that could as radically and profoundly impact issues of sexual assault and rape.”
Biden said there is a massive backlog of rape kits sitting on crime lab shelves across the country, with some 500,000 kits still waiting to be tested. Rape victims are kept waiting for justice while rapists are free to strike again, said Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who introduced a similar bill, called the Debbie Smith Act, in the House last year. Congressman Mark Green, R-Wis., is sponsoring the bill this year and introduced it Tuesday.
The Senate last year unanimously passed Biden’s bill, called the DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act, but the House did not act. Biden and other supporters held a news conference Tuesday to rally colleagues to make the bill a top priority this session.
“It is almost unimaginable that here in the 21st century we would keep a rape kit on the shelf, unexamined,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said Tuesday as she urged Congress to act quickly. “This falls into the category of ‘shame on us’ if we don’t finally act to make this tool available across our country to catch those who have terrorized women and to give peace of mind to people like Debbie Smith who have done so much to bring us to this point.”
Lawmakers say that money is the only thing that stands in the way of processing the rape kits. DNA analysis can range from $500 to $1,500 per kit.
In Massachusetts, Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said there isn’t enough money to process all of the cases that come through his office. The bill would enable prosecutors to process more evidence and cross-reference DNA with an even broader national database, he said.
“This would give us the tools we need to do serious prosecution in serious cases,” Blodgett said.
The bill is now under review by the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and is expected to gain bipartisan support.
Congressman Martin T. Meehan, D-Lowell, said he would support the legislation.
“We have a difficult enough time getting rape victims to come forward that when they do, we have to make sure the authorities know how to process the kits effectively,” Meehan said.
Congressman Jeb Bradley, R-N.H., said he was “virtually certain” to support it but wanted to see how much the bill would cost taxpayers before pledging his vote.
“I want to see, when it gets to the floor, what the price tag is,” Bradley said.
Lifetime Television has an on-line petition that people can sign to support the Debbie Smith Act. For more information, go to www.lifetimetv.com.
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
