“The Best Bargain in the History of Law Enforcement” — and the High Cost of Not Testing Backlogged Rape Kits – By Catherine Rentz (ProPublica) / June 15 2021
When reporter Catherine Rentz began looking at the criminal histories of men who’d been arrested for rape based on DNA evidence, she found a system that protected serial criminals rather than survivors.
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. This story was originally published in the Cold Justice newsletter, which goes behind the scenes of our three-part investigation into the outrage and promise of untested DNA from rape victims. You can sign up for the newsletter here.
In my last dispatch, I told you about beginning to look into the criminal records of the men arrested as a result of officials testing cold-case evidence in Baltimore County. Today, I want to finish that story, walk you through how I enlisted the help of academics, and reveal some of the surprises and challenges I faced once I began reporting beyond the data.
First, I want to begin with a line that has stuck with me from the 2017 HBO documentary “I Am Evidence” about backlogged rape kits.
“These rape kits are the best bargain in the history of law enforcement,” said Timothy McGinty, the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, prosecutor, after he saw the results of processing nearly 5,000 untested rape kits. At least one out of every four alleged perpetrators identified through the mass testing turned out to be a suspected serial offender. Cuyahoga’s investigations had led to more than 800 indictments as of September 2020.
Money had long been used as an excuse not to test these kits, but as I looked up the criminal histories of the dozens of men who’d been arrested as a result of testing a small sample of DNA, I had to ask whether that money could be saved by preventing other crimes.
