Unfortunately, and to the surprise of few, victims of sexual assault face an uphill battle in the fight for justice. Even when a survivor of a sexual assault is brave enough to report the crime to law enforcement, the legal system is still stacked against them.
Sometimes, law enforcement officials themselves are skeptical or blame the victims for the crime, according to research led by Rebecca Campbell of Michigan State University. When that isn’t the case, victims have to fight through a backlog of untested sexual assault evidence collection kits--commonly known as rape kits--that, according to USA Today, “reaches into the hundreds of thousands.” What is more, many states will throw out rape kits before they even get the chance to be tested, destroying survivors’ chances for justice. In fact, no state requires rape kits be preserved for the entire statute of limitations of a sexual assault. Indiana, for example, does not require rape kits to be preserved for any amount of time. As a result of these challenges to victims, our criminal justice system seemingly works harder to protect perpetrators than support survivors.
In order to address these issues, Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire introduced the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act to the Senate on Tuesday. The act seeks to empower survivors of sexual assault by guaranteeing certain rights to those who bring their cases into the criminal justice system. Most notably, the bill would mandate that rape kits be preserved for the entire statute of limitations, require that survivors are given 60 days notice when their kit is to be destroyed, allow survivors to request further preservation of their kit and would make states inform victims of the results if their kit is tested.
At the very least, this bill removes the burden of responsibility for preserving the evidence of a rape from the shoulders of sexual assault survivors and assures victims their rape kit will not be destroyed. The bill has been endorsed by several organizations, including the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence and International Association of Forensic Nurses.
Yet, while it is a good start, the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act does not go nearly far enough. While it guarantees a rape kit will not be destroyed during the statute of limitations, it does not guarantee that a rape kit will be tested, even if it could help a victim’s case—thereby doing nothing to reduce the enormous backlog of rape kits in the criminal justice system. It does nothing to address the shortage of funding to complete DNA tests on rape kits, which is cited by RAINN as one of the most common reasons kits are not tested. The bill does nothing to improve the training of law enforcement officials in dealing with sexual assault cases, and it does not meaningfully expand access to trained counselors for survivors.
The lack of these provisions makes the legislation weak at best. It is a good first step and certainly moves things in the right direction. However, if we want to meaningfully address the way our criminal justice system treats sexual assault and its survivors, there is so much more to be done.
Piggins is a senior economics major from Saugatuck, Michigan.