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Hundreds of sexual assault kits untested in Missouri

January 5, 2016
By
Emna Nicolas

COLUMBIA – Hundreds of rape and sexual assault kits in Missouri go untested for months or years at a time, while some are never tested at all.

The current state of Missouri’s system to prosecute rapists is failing survivors who made the choice of enduring the four to six-hour examination required to create a kit.

“And they do that with the expectation that the evidence will be used in their case, and that it will be handled appropriately and effectively,” said Ilse Knecht, the Joyful Heart Foundation's policy and advocacy director.

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Miami PD to begin work on state’s largest backlog of untested rape kits

January 4, 2016
By
David Smiley

An effort to identify and process every untested rape kit in Florida has found that more than 3,700 exist in Miami-Dade County, including 2,243 held by Miami police alone — the most of any law enforcement agency in the state.

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Law & Order: SVU' star and director Mariska Hargitay confronts sexual consent

January 2, 2016
By
Edward Vkanty

Mariska Hargitay has again been directing episodes of Law & Order: SVU and her most recent efforts aired Wednesday night in the appropriately titled episode, “A Misunderstanding.” The episode was written by Celine C. Robinson, who previously wrote six other episodes for the series, and centers around a young high school couple in a story that involves a he-said, she-said scenario addressing issues related to sexual consent. Hargitay says the episode was daunting to direct, because sexual consent is as murky topic in real American courtrooms as it is in fictional legal dramas.

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Nevada lawmakers allocate funds to test rape kits

December 17, 2015
By
Ken Ritter

LAS VEGAS – Nevada lawmakers have agreed to allocate almost $3.7 million to test 7,500 sexual assault evidence kits languishing in police vaults around the state, including some in Las Vegas dating back 30 years.

State Attorney General Adam Laxalt told the legislature’s Interim Finance Committee on Wednesday the state is just getting started digging through the backlog.

The money includes $1.7 million from a settlement this summer with JPMorgan Chase in a debt collection practices case toward the rape kit effort.

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Congress slated to increase rape kit funding by $45M

December 16, 2015
By
Steve Reilly

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers are positioned to devote $45 million in the 2016 fiscal year to combat the nation’s accumulation of untested sexual assault kits.

The funding, included as part of the omnibus spending bill Congress released Wednesday, is aimed at helping local law enforcement agencies test backlogged sexual assault evidence kits and perform related activities as part of a U.S. Justice Department initiative.

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Greek life tackles sexual assault

December 6, 2015
By
Yael Lederman

In 2011, students from a fraternity at the University of Vermont circulated an email asking members whom they wanted to rape. In 2010, Delta Kappa Epsilon members at Yale paraded around campus chanting what The Yale Daily News would later deem “an active call for sexual violence.”

Greek life has often found itself at the center of the sexual assault discussion nationwide. Although this issue is not isolated to Greek life, media and society often buy into a negative stigma of frequent sexual assault in the Greek community, often painting Greek life in a negative light.

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The story behind the first rape kit

Nov. 21, 2015
By
Jessica Ravitz
First used in Illinois and then across the country, rape kits are making headlines as hundreds of thousands of them are being discovered backlogged, untested and, in some cases, destroyed.
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Law & Order crime show battles rape myths: study

Nov. 19, 2015
By
Peter Edwards
TV show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit may help educate television viewers about rape and importance of sexual consent, study suggests.
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This is why thousands of Minnesota rape kits go untested

Nov. 13, 2015
By
Elizabeth Mohr

The numbers might seem alarming: more than 3,000 rape kits sitting on shelves, untested, at law enforcement agencies across the state. And for more than 9 percent of those cases, the reason for not testing is "unknown."

But police are quick to explain that a reasonable explanation often exists for not testing evidence collected after a sex assault is reported: Sometimes victims do not want to move forward with a case. Sometimes the suspect's identity is not in question. Sometimes prosecutors decline to file charges.

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Michael Stars launches limited T-shirts

By
The Beach Reporter
Michael Stars is teaming up with actress Mariska Hargitay and Joyful Heart Foundation to introduce an updated capsule collection of limited-edition tees and tanks that launched nationwide last week.
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