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Victims & Offenders
An International Journal of Evidence-based Research, Policy, and Practice
Volume 15, 2020 - Issue 2
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Original Articles

The Best Way Out is Always Through: Addressing the Problem of Untested Sexual Assault Kits (SAKs) through Multidisciplinary Collaboration

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Pages 159-173 | Published online: 16 Oct 2019
 

ABSTRACT

In jurisdictions throughout the United States, law enforcement personnel have not been routinely submitting sexual assault kits (SAKs) for forensic DNA testing. The biological evidence in these kits may still be viable and actionable for police and prosecutors, so multiple federal programs have been created to promote rape kit testing, investigation, prosecution, and victim advocacy. In this longitudinal qualitative study, we followed one large urban community through a multi-year process of reviewing thousands of untested rape kits to identify empirically-supported lessons learned for successful multidisciplinary collaboration in “cold case” sexual assaults. Results indicated the importance of developing community champions and community quarterbacks to engage and sustain collaborative partners. The multidisciplinary action research team developed strategies for negotiating with both front line staff and executives, advocating for sustainable staffing plans, changing policy and practice across all partner organizations, and codifying these changes in the face of constant upheaval. Implications for empirically-supported training and technical assistance programs are discussed.

Acknowledgments

The opinions or points of view expressed in this document are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the official positions of any participating organization or the U.S. Department of Justice. The authors thank Dr. Jennifer Lawlor for her consultation on the development of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In addition to these service grant programs, NIJ has funded multiple research projects on untested SAKs that have also supported rape kit testing (see Ritter, Citation2011, Citation2016).

Additional information

Funding

The action research project described in this paper was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Justice (2011-DN-BX-0001).

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