USA TODAY: …A USA TODAY Media Network investigation found that the U.S. Department of Justice has failed to comply with laws enacted by Congress aimed at paying for testing and reducing the backlog of untested rape kits — despite the power of the kits to provide evidence that can identify unknown assailants, exonerate wrongly accused suspects, and confirm the accounts of survivors.
The examination across all 50 states identified at least 70,000 sexual assault kits at more than 1,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide — likely only a small fraction of the national accumulation that likely reaches into the hundreds of thousands across the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies.
“If we’re able to test these rape kits, more crimes would be solved, more rapes would be avoided,” Vice President Biden said in March, announcing an additional $41 million in grant funding as part of a White House initiative to address the problem.
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EDITOR: A ‘tip of the hat’ to USA Today and Gannett for this excellent example of investigatory journalism. They say that “journalists for more than 75 Gannett newspapers and TEGNA TV stations” collected data.
Contrast this with the hateful campaign the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News are conducting against Attorney General Kathleen Kane. Another editorial appeared today in the Daily News that we will not even read, let alone link to. When will others speak out about this ‘yellow’ journalism? (A term from the past but which expresses what is taking place.)
