I
107TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 3961
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.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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
A BILL
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 Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Rape Kit DNA Anal-
ysis 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 Statis-
tics of the Department of Justice, in the year 2000,
34 percent of female victims of rape or sexual as-
sault 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 as-
saults 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 pro-
files 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 elimi-
nate 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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