Current Legislation in Congress to End the Backlog

While the Debbie Smith Act is a wonderful piece of legislation, there is room for improvement.  The act gives money to states and cities to be given to local law enforcement agencies. However, it does not require the state or the city to report the progress, if any, or enforce the agency to attempt to reduce and prevent a backlog.  The law also states that the money cannot be used to hire staff, which according to many studies, needs to be increased by 73%, so the money never goes unused.

Today, many lawmakers have promised to pass another piece of legislation that would be more effective in reducing and preventing a backlog.  The democratic representative from New York, Anthony Weiner, has proposed a bill that would require all agencies receiving grant money to collect DNA from all convicted felons still in prison and put the information into the national database, CODIS (The Combined DNA Index System).  The bill would also set benchmarks by which a certain amount of DNA kits must be tested.  The author of the original Debbie Smith Act, Carolyn Maloney (also a democratic representative from New York), has introduced a similar, yet separate, piece of legislation.

Representatives Al Franken (D-MN), Charles Grassley (R-IA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced the Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act of 2009.  This bill would specify how much of the funds will be used for testing the backlog.  It would also stipulate that the backlog is to be reduced by 50 percent at the end of two years.  This bill would also implement incentives, mostly financial, to jurisdictions that aggressively attack and eliminate their backlog. And like the Debbie Smith Act of 2004, it would create a system which would standardize the methods of collecting and processing rape kits.  It would also put a stop to a very shocking, yet common, practice of having the victim pay for their rape kits.

These are just a few ideas in Congress now on how to best address the backlog.  So far there has not been a decision either way.  I guess we must wait and see what is decided.