Visions of Public Safety, Justice, and Healing: The Making of the Rape Kit Backlog in the United States

Abstract

Large backlogs of untested sexual assault kits have recently come to light in cities across the United States, fueling public controversies over criminal justice responses to sexual assault and sexual assault forensic services. This article examines these controversies to reveal how kit backlogs have come to matter as a political problem. Using a range of textual data, this article traces the history of the sexual assault kit backlog in New York City and contemporary national campaigns around kit backlogs to examine how sexual assault kit backlogs are being defined as threats to public safety, justice, and healing for victims of crime. Drawing on theoretical insights from actor-network theory, institutional ethnography, and feminist technoscience studies, this article examines the implications of the current framing of kit backlogs for sexual assault survivors and their allies, and current dialogues about criminal justice responses to sexual assault.

The Link Between the SAMFE and Police Perceptions of Victim Credibility

“…The victim's decision, as well as their actions and behaviors during the medical exam itself, aligns with expected post-assault victim behavior as motivation to assist in the investigation. While prior research has well established that meeting expectations of victim post-assault behavior establishes credibility and affects case progression (Campbell et al, 2015;Campbell & Fehler-Cabral, 2018, 2020Kaiser et al, 2017;Tasca et al, 2013), our finding elaborates the specific link between victims' credibility and their decision to undergo a SAMFE that has been suggested by previous research (Corrigan, 2013;Quinlan, 2016).…”

“…Central to these efforts is the role of the sexual assault medical forensic exam (SAMFE) in investigating and prosecuting criminal cases, revisiting cold cases, and ensuring justice for past and future victims (OVW, 2013). As stories of large numbers of unsubmitted and backlogged sexual assault kits (SAKs) have captured the attention of national and local media (Quinlan, 2020), practitioners and researchers continue to debate how SAMFE evidence should be considered and processed, including whether and how to prioritize testing of large volumes of forensic evidence, how to follow up with previously closed cases after forensic testing, and what practical role SAMFEs play in investigative and prosecutorial decision-making (Campbell et al, 2017; Spohn, 2016).…”

The Rape Kit’s Promise: Techno-optimism in the Fight Against the Backlog

“…Stories about dangerous stranger rapists assaulting other victims while rape kits sit untested are used in rape kit backlog campaigns to raise public alarm about the risks of not testing rape kits. These stories help to promote a narrow vision of sexual violence as a crime committed primarily by strangers (Quinlan, 2019), when in fact, statistics suggest that most sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim (Morgan and Kena, 2017). More broadly, these stories help generate a dystopic vision of a future in which rapists walk free while rape kits remain untested.…”

“…When the rape kit is equated with public safety and justice, a victim's decision to have the rape kit exam is not just a personal one (Quinlan, 2019). The kit will not only benefit her, so she is told, but also the rest of society as it could put the perpetrator behind bars and protect others from being victimized.…”

“…Many more kits are never sent to the laboratory and are instead housed in police storage facilities, in some cases for decades (see Figure 2; Campbell et al, 2017). While rape kit backlogs have been defined differently in the fields of forensic science and law enforcement (Quinlan, 2019), advocacy organizations have popularized the phrase to refer to rape kits that have not been sent to a laboratory for testing and remain in police storage facilities for more than 10 days, and kits that sit untested in forensic laboratories for more than 30 days (Joyful Heart Foundation, 2018). Investigations by scholars and victim advocacy organizations have generated a wide range of explanations for rape kit backlogs.…”