- Select a language for the TTS:
- UK English Female
- UK English Male
- US English Female
- US English Male
- Australian Female
- Australian Male
- Language selected: (auto detect) - EN
Play all audios:
In a move being applauded by victim-advocacy groups, The Seattle Police Department will begin testing the 1,276 rape kits it has stored. Following a sexual assault, victims often undergo a
forensic examination that collects potential evidence like blood, semen, and saliva, and preserves it in a kit. When a kit is tested, the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab enters the results
into the Combined DNA Index System, an FBI database with DNA profiles, and looks to see if there is a match. Of the 1,641 rape kits collected by the department in the past 10 years, just
365 have been tested, _The Seattle Times_ reports. The backlog in Seattle and across the country is due to the high cost of testing, which ranges from $500 to $1,500 per kit, but in
November, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. pledged up to $35 million to test rape kits across the country. “We want [rape victims] to know that we, as a nation, are doing
everything in our power to bring justice to them,” he said. SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEK Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives. SUBSCRIBE
& SAVE SIGN UP FOR THE WEEK'S FREE NEWSLETTERS From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. From our
morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. Explore More Zurich Speed Reads
