It remains unclear why the LAPD and many other labs have not used all their grant money. Several labs contacted by ProPublica had no explanation for why the money hadn’t been spent.

LAPD Assistant Chief Sharon Papa acknowledged that, on paper, the department had nearly $2 million in unspent federal DNA funds as of August. She and her staff said those figures did not account for about $500,000 of DNA work sent to private labs but not yet reflected on balance sheets.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-me-backlog9-2008nov09,0,76082,full.story

Rape is horrific, but as a politician compare the odds that your voters are impacted to the odds they are impacted by cancer, alzheimers crime, immigration issues, single or teen parenting. Voters aren’t going to vote based on this issue, and basically voters really do get what they ask for.

In some places where other issues compete less this may work, but unless you have a politician with a personal interest, I don’t see much chance the emphasis is going to change.

It is a priority issue, as I said, and it says a lot abt what we, as a country, think of as important. That’s the whole thing…

TX Playwright, you are absolutely right – we have to keep fighting, fighting, fighting for our rights.

Onward and Upward. Women–and men–deserve to be respected AND accountable.

http://www.hrw.org/en/node/81825/section/6

In order to permanently eliminate the rape kit backlog and test every booked rape kit in a timely manner, both city and county crime labs will require a significant increase in DNA analysts, expanded workspace for DNA testing, more efficient DNA testing methods and equipment, and a DNA evidence tracking system. DNA testing of rape kits is a complicated process,[27] but both the county and city crime labs can be more efficient in the way they process this critical evidence.
The National Problem

There is no doubt that crime labs across the country are inundated with requests for DNA testing. The most recent federal Census of Publicly Funded Crime Laboratories-released in 2008 using data collected in 2005-shows that during 2005 public crime labs saw their DNA backlog double from the beginning to the end of the year, and that public crime labs across the country would need to increase their DNA analyst staff by 73 percent to keep up with DNA testing needs and requests.[28]

Congress has recognized the problem of rape kit backlogs in crime laboratories. In 2004 Congress passed the Debbie Smith Act as part of the Justice for All Act.[29] The Debbie Smith Act established the Forensic DNA Casework and Backlog Reduction Grant Program, which provides federal funds for state and local law enforcement entities to test DNA evidence.[30] Both the Los Angeles City and County crime labs have been allocated substantial funding from the program, also known as the Forensic DNA Backlog Reduction Program. But it is not clear how much, if any, of the money was used to test rape kits. That the Police and Sheriff’s Departments’ rape kit backlogs remained constant or grew, despite millions of dollars in Debbie Smith Act funding, illustrates what is wrong with the current structure of the federal grant program to reduce rape kit backlogs in the US.

And Kathy, you are absolutely right abt how we’d treat other countries that act similarly…

And, in fact, the DA in the case specifically mentioned by RRRAmy, the DA could have made a strong case. If only the rape kit had been processed within 30 days.

I suspect many more strong cases could be made by DAs across the country if rape kits were processed within 30 days.

Yes, there are many reasons women retreat from prosecuting their rapists. However, processing of the rape kit in a timely manner is a civil right, and women clearly are being robbed of that right by apathy, and a sexist legal system.

Why isn’t there a federal mandated time limit on rape kit processing? Why? Just tell me why. We have a right to a speedy trial in this country. Our rights are being denied if rape kit processing takes years, at best many months. And, we’re being put in danger daily by the delay.

Someone please. Just tell me why we don’t have a law mandating rape kit processing within 30 days.

Short of raising funds to have these rape kits processed, it would appear that the only way to get the city’s to process the rape kits in a timely manner or at all, would be to have a class action lawsuit by Gloria Alred type of attorney or the ACLU.

Any ideas anyone? Rev. Amy, perhaps through your article, a grass roots campaign to get this atrocity put right, could begin. What say you?