Why Did Police Departments Throw Out Rape Kits?

This North Carolina woman reported being gang-raped. A detective botched her case, and her rape kit was destroyed. MELISSA GOLDEN/REDUX FOR CNN

Last week, CNN revealed that police departments across the country have been throwing untested rape kits in the trash.

The expose, two years in the making, revealed that at least 25 agencies in 14 states have destroyed rape kits either before the statute of limitation expired and in states that have no statute of limitation on rape.

WLP Executive Director Carol E. Tracy assisted the CNN investigation by reviewing police case files.

On top of throwing away kits, the CNN report revealed that some police departments were sending a letter to rape victims informing them that if they didn’t decide whether to cooperate with police within 10 days they would order the rape kit—forensic evidence painstakingly collected from the victim’s body over the course of several hours after the assault—to be destroyed.

Reporters also found that in some cases police have asked victims to sign prosecution declination waivers the same day they were raped. In one case, police asked a rape victim who had been injected with drugs by her assailant to sign the form the same day she was assaulted.

Carol Tracy joined NPR radio show 1A yesterday to discuss the national scandal and how the Philadelphia Model, a best-practice review of rape case files by advocates created by Tracy and Managing Attorney Terry L. Fromson in response to Philadelphia’s scandalous failure to properly investigate rape crimes in the late 1990s, could be used to improve investigations and hold police accountable.

Listen to the program here.

Tracy is joined by CNN investigative reporter Ashley Fantz, SVU Commander Lt. John Somerindyke of the Fayetteville Police Department, and Michigan prosecutor Kym Worthy.

The Women’s Law Project is a public interest law center in Pennsylvania devoted to advancing the rights of women and girls.

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