ICYMI: Despite Legislation and Funding, Texas Still Has Thousands of Untested Rape Kits
A sexual assault evidence kit is logged in the biology lab at the Houston Forensic Science Center in Houston.A few years ago, a woman, her husband and their grandson were stopped by police outside of San Antonio. It was the middle of the night, and the reason for the stop, according to the two officers, was safety: The family was approaching a high crime area. To the married couple taking their grandchild to SeaWorld, that reasoning felt flimsy.
A rape kit is a package of evidence collected after a rape occurs, and it typically contains shreds of DNA in the form of skin cells, semen, blood or saliva. Ideally, these kits are used to catch and jail perpetrators. But as is the case in Texas, they sometimes sit on a shelf, unprocessed for years.
Lavinia Masters gave her name and energy to a bill from the Texas Legislature in 2019 meant to eliminate the backlog of untested rape kits in the state. The backlog remains, and Masters is still fighting.In 2011, a statewide backlog of more than 18,000 untested rape kits gained national headlines and prompted action from lawmakers like former Sen. Wendy Davis.
“There’s still a lot of work to do in ensuring counties know their legal obligations,” Neave tells theIn the wake of the recent Dobbs ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, which decreed that the Constitution does not provide a right to an abortion, the state’s persistent backlog has once again garnered headlines. Yet even before the Supreme Court’s ruling, Texas’ own restrictive abortion bill — and Gov.
, journalist Katie Herchenroeder noted, “It’s not just abortion clinics that will be affected by the Dobbs decision. In particular, advocates told me, it will hurt rape crisis centers, which provide emergency contraception, forensic exams, counseling, and sexual education — while also advocating for justice for survivors, including ending the immense backlog of rape kits across the country.
Another issue is money. In the early days of her advocacy, lack of funds was a common refrain Masters heard from practically every county official she engaged. Amy Derrick, an administrative chief in the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, echoes Masters. “Cornyn is known for supporting DNA technology, and unfortunately, he is one of the senators we have not been able to get on the phone with,” says Kristen Mittelman, Othram’s chief business development officer. . “He is still writing bills only supporting legacy technology,” Mittelman says. “That's extremely disheartening, and I don't understand where the disconnect is there.
Afterward she told Neave, “‘If this county has this mentality, how many other counties have the same mentality?’” A survivor of rape in Texas may be forced to shell out money for contraceptives and a test for sexually transmitted diseases, and even after all that, their own county may not process their rape kit.Masters’ longtime disdain for law enforcement made the governor’s task force a team of strange bedfellows. The team includes several of people from the worlds of politics and criminal justice and, by Masters’ own admission, she “made a lot of enemies.
Specifically, academics, experts and advocates argue that laws like Senate Bill 8 and, more broadly, the backlash against abortion can harm rape survivors and even curb reporting. As illustrated by a late 2021 story from NPR, this backlash has recently intensified in a way that is out of step with public opinion in Texas and throughout the country — and even with many in the Republican Party.
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