Whose Rape Kit? Technological Innovation, Materialization, and Barriers to Social Justice

• In Event: 192 - Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Paper Session. Open Topic in Sociology of Science, Knowledge and Technology

Abstract

Since the introduction of the rape kit, the role of forensics in prosecuting perpetrators of sexual violence has accelerated. Reshaping what is considered a viable legal case, increasingly, victims must have a ‘good’ rape kit for their rapists to be prosecuted. Although evidence, and especially DNA evidence, created with forensics is held as the gold standard, rape kits have created a crisis for the criminal justice system, as evidenced by the immense rape kit backlog, and the cost of processing them. Much scholarship has focused on those who collect rape kits, sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs), rather than the rape kits as a technological artifact and intervention. To date, no scholarly examination of the rape kit’s origins exists limiting analysis of the rape kit’s success. In this paper, I conduct a socio-historic archaeology of the rape kit uncovering its histories at the intersections of science, law, and culture. First, I trace its origins as a technological intervention by feminist activists and uncover its developers’ original aims. I then assess the rape kit’s impact on arrest trends by analyzing longitudinal arrest and victimization data. Lastly, employing both STS and feminist conceptions of materialization, I suggest normative cultural views of sexual violence interact with discourses of science and technology to complicate the perceived objectivity of the rape kit, and its capability to achieve social justice. This analysis offers productive insights for transforming State policy, and bridging divergent views of sexual violence justice.

Author

• Renee Marie Shelby, Georgia Institute of Technology