After someone is raped, DNA material and other evidence is collected by trained medical professionals and put into medical rape kits.
The idea is to use that evidence to find the rapist and prosecute that person, which may provide the victim a bit of closure.
But that closure – and many prosecutions – are still hanging in the balance for some 7,500 Nevadans whose rape kits never got processed and 6,300 of those kit are in Clark County. And some of them are 63 years old.
Assistant Attorney General Wesley Duncan, who’s the vice-chair of a state working group addressing the problem, told KNPR's State of Nevada that one of the biggest problems is cost.
Testing a rape kit can cost between $1,000 and $1,500 per kit and many jurisdictions simply didn't have the money for it.
"The DNA technology has not got to the place where it is easy and cost effective to test those kits," Duncan said.
He said what started as a small backlog ballooned until now there are thousands of kits waiting for testing.
Now, the state has $5.6 million dollars to test those kits.
Duncan said the oldest kit in Clark County dates to 1985. So, as the process of testing starts, many victims who have worked to try to heal could be traumatized again.
"We might be opening up wounds that people have tried to heal from crimes that might have occurred to them many years ago," Duncan said. "So, the victim notification component of testing these rape kits is very important."
Victim notification and resources to deal with those reopened wounds is where the Rape Crisis Center of Southern Nevadais stepping in.
Executive director Daniele Dreitzler said they are working to contact people who have kits that are going to be tested. That task alone could be daunting, some of the victims no longer live in Southern Nevada or never lived here.
Beyond just talking to victims, the center is ready "to provide resources and advocacy to victims for whom this is going to bring up a whole lot of stuff that they may not have dealt with in quite some time," Dreitzler said.
But testing the kits is really just the first step, if a test matches DNA to another crime or to a person already in the system, detectives then must track down that suspect, find witnesses and build a case against him.
"The DNA hit is just the first point in the needle of a whole lot of things that need to happen," Dreitzler said.
Despite the work ahead, Duncan believes it is vital on several levels.
"I think there are three primary reasons. First: justice for our victims. Second: accountability for the perpetrators of these crimes and third community safety," he said.
Dreitzler believes setting up the process of testing the kits, investigating the rapes and contacting the victims will help stop a backlog from happening again.
"[It is] All really creating a system that in the long term will not allow this type of backlog to happen again," she said.
As for the future, Metro Police has pledged to not allow another backlog to start. In January, the department started testing kits from that month forward.
Assistant Attorney General Wesley Duncan; Daniele Dreitzler, executive director, Rape Crisis Center
