“On the shelves, covered in dust”

Abstract

The national problem of untested sexual assault kits (SAKs) is the result of a complex web of historical challenges facing law enforcement agencies and crime laboratories across the country. This chapter will review the factors that led to the accumulation of untested SAKs in police jurisdictions throughout the United States by chronicling the imbalance in supply and demand in the forensic testing sphere. We will begin by describing how the practice of collecting sexual assault medical forensic evidence came to be and how demand for kit collection increased with the emergence of forensic DNA testing. Then we will describe how the surplus of unsubmitted SAKs was first discovered and review research that has examined the underlying reasons why police have not routinely submitted SAK for forensic DNA analysis. Finally, this chapter will detail new policy programs and empirical research that have identified promising practices for finding untested kits, moving them through testing, and utilizing the findings to improve investigations, prosecutions, and responses to survivors.