New Crime-Fighting Tool: ‘Jane Doe’ Rape Kits

Criminal Justice

New Crime-Fighting Tool: ‘Jane Doe’ Rape Kits

Posted May 13, 2008, 04:46 pm CDT
By Martha Neil

At least a decade after the Federal Bureau of Investigation recommended the measure, states will be required next year to ante up for a new crime-fighting tool—so-called "Jane Doe" rape kits that allow medical personnel to collect evidence from women anonymously.

Unless and until the victims who take this approach decide to notify police, the evidence is kept in a sealed envelope identified only by a number, reports the Associated Press.

The kits, which cost $800 each, must be paid for by the states, starting in 2009, or they will lose federal funding under the federal Violence Against Women Act, the news agency reports. Some, but not all, jurisdictions already pay for the Jane Doe kits.

Among those that do is Cecil County, Md., where Anne Bean serves as clinical director for a rape and sexual assault counseling program.

"Many times, you have people who were drunk, maybe doing drugs, maybe they're underage, and you start talking about the police and they get scared," she says. "So, sometimes it's not until long after they're willing to report, at which point of course any physical evidence is gone."

Medical personnel are, however, required to report rapes to police where a child has been a victim of a sex crime, the article notes.

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