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Untested DNA Sitting on the Shelf

By Steve Hall

Brandi Grissom posts, "Thousands of Texas Rape Kits Never Tested," for today's Texas Tribune. In police departments across Texas, tens of thousands of rape kits have been sitting on the shelves of property storage rooms for years, the result of strained budgets, overworked crime labs and a law enforcement philosophy that rape kits are primarily useful as evidence if a stranger committed the assault. Victims? rights advocates and some lawmakers say they will work to pass legislation this year to take all of that evidence out of storage and create a DNA database that would help track rapists and perhaps even identify those who have been wrongly convicted. State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, is preparing a bill that would require police departments to test all rape kits in their possession and every one they get in the future...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on January 28, 2011 (boomark / email).