Tell the Department of Justice: Investigate the illegal use of DNA in rape kits!
Rather than deter survivors from reporting sexual violence, police departments should end the rape kit backlog and prioritize solving these cases.
San Francisco's district attorney has just revealed that for years the city's crime lab was "routinely using the DNA of survivors of sexual assault, including child victims, to search for matches to suspects in criminal cases."
And to make things worse, San Francisco's police department has also been keeping DNA profiles in a database without survivors' consent.
Why is this important?
Allowing law enforcement to use the DNA from rape kits for any other purpose than to identify the perpetrators of sexual assault will only deter survivors from reporting sexual violence.
Already, sexual assaults are underreported, and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of rape kits remain untested in police and crime lab storage facilities across the country.
In a recent letter sent to the FBI, California Congressman Adam Schiff expressed his concern that allowing the police to store the DNA of survivors in a database without explicit permission could be a violation of their privacy rights and should be prohibited.
Add your name now to demand that the Department of Justice investigate the San Francisco Police Department's crime lab's actions immediately!