Whether by an acquaintance or by a stranger.
Why Haven't 70,000 Rape Kits Been Tested for DNA?
by Kate Snow and Rich McHugh
Jul 20 2015, 7:22 pm ET
Hundreds of thousands of rape kits that could identify serial sexual attackers are sitting untested by police departments across the country — despite promises and federal funds to clear the backlog, a new agency-by-agency count suggests.
Documents obtained exclusively by USA TODAY Media Network, an NBC News partner, uncovered more than 70,000 neglected forensic evidence kits amassed by more than 1,000 police agencies. That's just a fraction of the nation's 18,000 police departments, so the total number of untested kits is likely far higher.
Thirty-four states haven't even counted how many untested kits are sitting on shelves, and the Justice Department has not established federal guidelines on how to handle sex-crimes evidence to comply with a law passed by Congress in 2013.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rape-kits-n393186
Once those kits are tested - Surprise! - more cases can be successfully prosecuted.
Serial Rapists Are More Common Than We Knew & Testing Rape Kits Is Only Part Of The Answer To Reducing Sexual Assault
By Megan Grant
Jun 7 2016
After testing nearly 5,000 rape kits in Ohio that had previously gone untested, we've learned yet another unsettling truth: Serial rapists are more common than we think. It's a problem perpetuated by the fact that we tend to look at rapes as single instances, instead of more closely examining the rapist and their behavior and history. And it is long past time something was done about it.
The initiative to test these thousands of kits, the Cuyahoga County Sexual Assault Kit (SAK) Pilot Research Project carried out by Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), has made for more than 250 convictions; furthermore, out of the 243 kits that were studied, 51 percent of them were connected to serial offenders, according to several press releases from CWRU. What's more, there's a noticeable pattern of behavior in these repeat rapists: They have more violent histories; more than a quarter of them had been arrested for sexual assault before; and well over half of them were arrested for sexual assault later on. Additionally, serial offenders more often commit acts of kidnapping, verbal and physical threats, and the use or threat of use of weapons.
The takeaway here is a scary one: These numbers indicate that a sexual offender has likely committed an assault in the past, or likely will in the future.
https://www.bustle.com/articles/165334-serial-rapists-are-more-common-than-we-knew-testing-rape-kits-is-only-part-of
= new reply since forum marked as read
Great message to send in this already rape friendly culture. 
