Mission Impossible: Determining the Prevalence of Rape Crimes in Mobile, Alabama

• In Event: Unsubmitted Sexual Assault Kits and the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

Since 2015, multiple local institutions (police department, university, rape crisis center, DA, and the state's department of forensic sciences) have been collaborating to end the backlog of unsubmitted sexual assault kits (SAKs) in Mobile Alabama. Initially fueled by a single police officer, the Promise Initiative (PI) was formed to inventory, certify, and determine the need to test or re-test 1412 SAKs that were located in evidence. These kits spanned 36 years but included 35 unsubmitted SAKS from 2014 and 12 more from 2015, the year the PI began. Thus, police officers and PI team members were tasked with reconsidering the investigative work and decisions of current, as well as former colleagues. Initial reasons for not testing many of the kits were judgments that the rape charge was unfounded (84; 5.9%), lack of biological evidence (303; 21.5%), or the perpetrator was already known (189; 13.4%). A starting point for the researcher team was to determine important base-rates including: the prevalence of reported rapes, the number that included a SAK, the baseline level of victim cooperation in a reported rape case, the baserate of submitting kits to forensic testing, the typical hit rate, and the likelihood of proceeding to prosecution given a forensic hit. Institutional challenges to determining these baserates are detailed. However, partnership and policy gains resulted from engaging in the mission.

Authors

• Emma Lathan, University of South Alabama

• Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, University of South Alabama

• Jessica Duncan, University of South Alabama

• James Stefurak, University of South Alabama