On summer nights a year apart, two women left bars in downtown Austin, Tex., and were raped. One knew her rapist. He was an acquaintance who saw she was intoxicated and offered her a ride on the handlebars of his bicycle before sexually assaulting her as she drifted in and out of consciousness. The other did not. She told police she was attacked by strangers who pinned down her arms and legs while one of them raped her.
Neither investigation led to an arrest. Years later police received a significant lead: DNA found on one woman’s jeans matched DNA from a swab of the other’s neck. It suggested that the two women had been attacked by the same man – a serial rapist. This is the kind of breakthrough officials hoped for when they pledged to test sexual assault evidence that had been neglected for years in law enforcement storage rooms, USA Today reports. Since 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice has given out nearly $350 million in grants to 90 local and state agencies through the National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. Officials promised the money would put rapists behind bars and give victims long-awaited answers.
A USA Today investigation found that many cases hit the same roadblocks they did when victims first came forward: kits left untested, haphazard or cursory reviews by police and prosecutors, and a reluctance to inform people about what happened to evidence collected from their own bodies. DOJ says the program has led to 100,000 kits being tested and 1,500 convictions so far – nearly half from two agencies, while others have seen meager results. In Charlotte, N C., a backlog of about 2,300 kits has netted 14 convictions. In Mobile, Ala., a backlog of about 1,100 kits has led to convictions of eight men. In Austin, officials faced a backlog of more than 4,400 kits. They have secured just one conviction. Noël Busch-Armendariz, a University of Texas at Austin professor and researcher who has interviewed women with backlogged kits, said it is disheartening that victims – yet again – have been overlooked. “Survivors of sexual assault mostly feel betrayed by the silence around what happened to them,” she said. Angela Williamson, who has led the federal program since its inception, acknowledged that local success will vary based on the level of commitment. Williamson said the program has contributed to a “critical cultural shift” around the importance of testing sexual assault evidence. She said it is too early to gauge the program’s success by the number of rapists who have been convicted because it can take years for cases to move from testing to potential conviction. The program's data tracking is so poor that in some places, the federal government has no idea how many rapists were convicted – and likely never will.
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