Article2015

Shelving Justice: The Discovery of Thousands of Untested Rape Kits in Detroit

Rebecca Campbell · Jessica Shaw · Giannina Fehler‐Cabral

46 citations0/0 files storedCity and Community

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies Criminal Justice and Penology Policing Practices and Perceptions

Abstract

In August 2009, approximately 11,000 sexual assault kits (SAKs; “rape kits”) were found in a Detroit police department storage facility, the vast majority of which had never been tested for DNA evidence. To address this problem, a multidisciplinary action research project was formed to bring together researchers and practitioners from law enforcement, prosecution, forensic sciences, medicine/nursing, and victim advocacy to develop evidence–based response strategies. In this paper, we will draw upon qualitative interviews with Detroit stakeholders, archival records, and ethnographic observations to examine the events surrounding the discovery of the rape kits and why police personnel did not view the accumulation of so many untested SAKs as a problem. Over the course of this three–year action research project, Detroit stakeholders worked together to enact local– and state–level reforms to test these kits and to prevent this problem from happening again.

Citations in this library

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 46 citations exist upstream.

References

1985Naturalistic inquiry 1988Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook 2004Seeing Disorder: Neighborhood Stigma and the Social Construction of “Broken Windows”1988SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION AND THEORIES OF CRIME AND DELINQUENCY: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS*2007Researching the Vulnerable 2014The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit 2001Powerlessness and the Amplification of Threat: Neighborhood Disadvantage, Disorder, and Mistrust 2002Place matters: metropolitics for the twenty-first century

Cited by

2019The Promise Initiative: Promoting a trauma‐informed police response to sexual assault in a mid‐size Southern community 2016Should Rape Kit Testing Be Prioritized by Victim–Offender Relationship?2016Tested at Last: How DNA Evidence in Untested Rape Kits Can Identify Offenders and Serial Sexual Assaults 2021Whiteness in and through data protection: an intersectional approach to anti-violence apps and #MeToo bots 2016Justice Denied: Low Submission Rates of Sexual Assault Kits and the Predicting Variables 2017

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.