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HR 3961 IH

To provide additional resources to States to eliminate the backlog of unanalyzed rape kits and to ensure timely analysis of rape kits in the future.

MARCH 13, 2002

Mr. NADLER (for himself, Mrs. MINK of Hawaii, Mrs. JONES of Ohio, and Mr. ANDREWS) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

To provide additional resources to States to eliminate the backlog of unanalyzed rape kits and to ensure timely analysis of rape kits in the future.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Rape Kit DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

(a) FINDINGS- The Congress finds the following:

(1) Every 2 minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted.

(2) The Department of Justice reports that in the year 2000, there were an estimated 261,000 rapes and sexual assaults.

(3) The annual National Crime Victimization study consistently finds that only about one-third of rapes in the United States are reported.

(4) According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the Department of Justice, in the year 2000, 34 percent of female victims of rape or sexual assault reported that the offender was a stranger.

(5) According to the Department of Justice, DNA evidence is often recovered from crime scenes and can be crucial to the investigation of sexual assaults and other violent crimes.

(6) According to the Department of Justice, the importance of the role forensic DNA evidence plays in solving sexual assault and homicide cases cannot be overstated.

(7) A DNA profile from a crime scene can be entered into the Combined DNA Index System of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (known as CODIS), which allows agencies to match DNA profiles with other profiles entered into local, State, and national databases to identify a suspect or link serial crimes.

(8) A 1999 study commissioned by the National Institute of Justice estimated there was an annual backlog of 180,000 rape kits that have not been analyzed, and news reports indicate that the number of rape kits in the backlog may be as high as 500,000.

(9) Law enforcement officials using CODIS have matched unknown DNA evidence taken from crime scenes with known offender DNA profiles in the State and national DNA database 2,371 times.

(10) At least 100 inmates have been cleared and freed to date due to DNA testing.

(11) By convicting the guilty and freeing the innocent, DNA evidence truly serves the interests of justice.

(b) PURPOSE- The purpose of this Act is to provide adequate funding to ensure that the backlog of unanalyzed rape kits is eliminated.

SEC. 3. GRANTS FOR DNA ANALYSIS OF DNA SAMPLES FROM RAPE KITS.

Section 2 of the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 (42 U.S.C. 14135) is amended as follows:

(1) Subsection (a)(2) is amended by inserting after `from crime scenes' the following: `, to eliminate the backlog in carrying out DNA analyses of samples from rape kits, and to ensure that DNA analyses of samples from rape kits are timely carried out in the future'.

(2) Subsection (j)(2) is amended--

(A) in subparagraph (C), by striking `$25,000,000' and inserting `$150,000,000,'; and

(B) in subparagraph (D), by striking `$25,000,000' and inserting `$100,000,000,'.

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