Bonus Episode: Rape Kits

A survivor of sexual assault shares her story, and we discuss the past, present and future of rape kits.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, this is Annie, and welcome to stuff I've never
told you. Today. Samantha and I have something a little
different for you, changing it up, changing it up. We're

(00:28):
trying to keep it fresh. UM. In the last episode
in our ongoing mini series on trauma, we talked about
reasons why survivors might not come forward and then some
things that might happen if they do in a more
public sense, because, like we said, coming forward can mean
a couple of different things, but in that more public
way of reporting UM, and we touched on a few

(00:51):
of the cost financial, mental and physical, and a couple
of weeks ago, we brought in two interviewees to talk
about rape kit it's and the process of reporting UM,
a survivor and a researcher. So first, before we go
any further trigger warnings, this episode is not appropriate for
everyone to listen to. Please hear that you're going to

(01:14):
be listening. You're gonna be hearing the story from a
survivor about her sexual assault and the traumatic process that
she went through of reporting and it's it's nothing too graphic,
but it's still very difficult to hear. So please consider
your own mental health way in deciding to listen or
to not listen. Yeah, I think for both of us,
we had to come back together to make sure everybody

(01:36):
in our little crew was okay because it wasn't intense
uh process. But yeah, we did speak with two badass
women and their interviews were awesome. UM and somehow complimented
each other, which is not just somehow, of course, it
complimented each other, and we thought we'd share them with
you as one episode. So one is a researcher, Reineechelle Ba.

(01:57):
She is with Georgia Tech. Yeah, and the other is
a close friend of mine, Rebecca, who was willing to
come and talk about her personal experience with us. So
here's our story. I was sexually assaulted in July of
UM in North Carolina, in my hometown. I was engaged

(02:18):
at the time. UM I had flown to North Carolina
for my bridle shower and UM I was going to
be there for like a week kind of do some
like more wedding planning with my mom and stuff. I
was getting married in Seattle, so it was very important
for my southern family to have, you know, a bridle
shower with the church members and family that was in
North Carolina and all of that. Um. So I had

(02:38):
flown back home, and my first night in town, I
went out to get a drink. Um. And my father
is a Southern Baptist minister. Um, so you know, we
don't drink at all, and we certainly don't never talk
about it. Um. And so when I went out to
get a drink, I lied to my dad and I said, Hey,
I'm going to cook out and I'm gonna get a milkshake. Um.
You know, because he couldn't you through that lie. Um.

(03:01):
But yeah, I went out to like a local bar
where I, you know, out of college, knew a lot
of friends who were there and and stuff. Um. Went out,
I ended up not really seeing anybody that I knew.
My fiance was in like a an actor rehearsal thing
that I knew was going to go to like ten
pm in Seattle, so I knew i I would be

(03:22):
able to talk to him at like one in the morning.
So that was kind of my justification for going out.
I struck up a conversation with this guy. I was
smoking a cigarette and um, he asked if he could
like bum one from me. Then like his other friend came,
I found out they were in the military. They were
both like very good looking guys to be honest, um,
which I think is something that I really struggle with
now in hindsight. Um, thinking that they were attractive, you know.

(03:45):
At one point, like they bought me a beard, kind
of like celebrate that I was getting married because I
shared with them that I was home for my bridal
shower and all that. And um, when they ordered me
the beer, I said, well, I'm going to go to
the bathroom. I'll be right back. But when I came
out to the bar, the guy kind of had his
he kind of had the drink like behind him, which
was kind of weird in hindsight, you know, hindsight, bice,

(04:05):
So he gave me that drink. I think they ordered
me another drink after that. And at that point things
got really hazy. Um. I remember them like leaving the bar,
um and seeing them leave. Um, my car was parked
maybe a block up the street, in between two street lights,
and UM, I was trying to kind of sober up,

(04:26):
but I was like I was feeling really drunk and
like I couldn't stand up well and stuff, you know.
So um, at this point I did not ever end
up calling my husband um or fiance at the time,
and UM, I left the bar. The bar had closed down,
and as I was walking to my car, these two
guys came out of the little alleyway there and into
one of the street lights, and they were like, Hey,

(04:47):
do you want to come to our house and drink
some wine? And it felt kind of like I was
a robot or something like. I was like, yeah, that
sounds good. I didn't feel like myself. UM, so I'm
pretty convinced that I was roofied or drugged in some way. UM.
Ivey remember getting to their house. I know one of
them got in my car with me and drove my
car to where they were going, and the other guy

(05:07):
drove behind us. Um, which also seems really weird in hindsight. UM.
I remember getting to the house, and I remember that
they had a little dog and that the dog's name
was Rosy and she was really cute, and beyond that,
I don't really remember anything until the next morning. UM,
At around like seven am, I woke up because my
phone was going off, like ringing, and I was like

(05:28):
it kind of like woke me up. And when I
opened my eyes, one of the guys was on top
of me and he was um assaulting me, and I
remember kind of like shoving him off of me and
and like trying to kind of make sense of where
my things were, my like person stuff were like over
in like the kitchen area. So I like grabbed my phone.
It was my dad. My dad had been calling me, um,

(05:50):
and I like ran out of the house, got in
my car, and I had no idea where I was,
so like I start kind of driving, and at that point,
I still it was I still felt very weird, like
I was really shaky, and like knew that something bad
had happened, um, but I wasn't exactly sure what because
I couldn't remember any of it. UM. So I managed

(06:10):
to finally get back to my parents house. I know
my when I talked to my dad, my parents had
called the sheriff. There were people out kind of like
looking for me kind of thing. Um, And I like
lied to them because I was like, oh, I gotta
keep this lie going of not drinking, you know, um
and protect myself from my parents um in that like
child mindset. So UM, I lied to them and I

(06:32):
went to visit my best friend and I was spending
the night at her house that night and I explained
everything that happened, and she was like, a girl, you
were raped or something like you need to go to
the hospital, like we need to get you somewhere and
like do a rape kit, you need to call the police. Um.
And I was like, no, I really don't want to
do that. I'm getting married in two months, Like I
really don't want to like drag this out, you know,

(06:54):
And like I don't even know these guys names or
really even what they looked like. Other than that I
thought they were kind of cute. I remember calling my
fiance and I told him, and um, that was a
really hard phone conversation because I was like, is he
going to believe me? You know? And um he did
at that moment in time. And he was very pro

(07:15):
going to the hospital, going to the police, telling my parents,
And like I said, I was very anti that. I
did not want to upset my parents. I didn't want
to make it this big thing. I really didn't want
to like have to deal with it, you know. Um.
So my best friend and I we woke up really
early the next day. We're like, we're going to go
and get a rape kit done. We're gonna just do
this behind my parents back. It'll be really easy, right,

(07:36):
We'll just go to the hospital, have a rape kit done,
file a report whatever. My parents don't even need to
know about it, as you can guess it. Unfortunately, is
not that easy most of the time, as our expert
has discovered through her work. My name is Renee Shelby
and I am the research tructor at you Spark, which

(07:56):
is a nonprofit located in Atlanta's Fulton Any Juvenile Court.
I am also a researcher at Georgia Tech and I
work there in a couple of different capacities um and
then I also do research just around town. So I'm
a research fellow at the National Center for Civil and
Human Rights and their LGBTQ Institute, and I also work

(08:18):
with the Mayor's LGBTQ Advisory Board doing research for them.
So if you're assaulted and you go in in you
report that you have been raped and you would like
to be medically examined. So the nurse will sit you
down in a private room and they'll first they'll want
to do a history and this part should really be private,

(08:40):
should just be the person who experienced the assault and
the nurse just so they can make sure that there
can really get into it, and she'll take a history
and she'll document it down. Each rape kit looks different
in different states. Some states have protocols UM that the
entire state uses, like Texas has one UM but places
like here Georgia, most states it's kind of a free

(09:02):
for all. The different hospital can purchase whichever when they use.
So there's a lot of inconsistency and what's collected. So
you know, after they take that history of what has
happened to you, then they'll go through and there's essentially
this piece of paper and it has like a person
like this outline of a person, and they'll go through

(09:23):
and they'll they'll document, they'll swab you, you know, pick
hairs off of you, um pick any fibers. If the
hospital has more technology so that they have like a
couplescope which can as a camera that can magnify up
to forty times, they may photograph parts of your body.

(09:43):
UM do do different things, but when they actually get
to you know, swabbing your body to pulling evidence off
of you, you can have whomever you would like in
the room with you and it should always be about
UM re empowering that person. So you know, I should
be a lot of communication between the person who's seeing
the exam and the person who experienced the assault. And

(10:06):
this should ow at every step. It should be about asking,
you know, is this something that you want to do.
Here's what we're going to want to do. And if
that person is uncomfortable, if they do, not have to
move forward with any step. The exam can take, you know,
anywhere between. I've heard someone say an hour, but I
think four hours is like the real minimum that it
can be in the upwards if six hours, and then

(10:29):
once it's completed, UM, the product of that exam, all
those swabs, all of those UM envelopes, that gets packaged
up and that's your rape kit. So what they'll say is,
you know, for the science and in the best case scenario,
if you're assaulted that you know you you don't go
to the bathroom, you don't take a shower, you don't

(10:52):
change your clothes, and then you just go and get
the exam so they can get as much evidence off
of your body, because they're going to treat your body
like it's the scene of the crime. So from an
evidence perspective, the ideal is that a person has, you know,
preserved that scene of the crime as much as possible.

(11:12):
But that is incredibly difficult for someone who's experienced assault.
And we went to the emergency room and we were like, hey,
this is what happened. Um, you know I need to
get a rape get done. And they were like, okay,
well that's going to take several hours. And I was like, well,
that can't happen because I have my bridal gown fitting
at eleven a m um and I remember the nurse

(11:34):
came in and she was like, if you leave right
now to go to your bridal gown fitting, it's gonna
seem like you didn't really get raped. And I was like, well,
I need to go get my bridlegwnfitted. And you know,
I don't really want to get my parents involved, so
I'm gonna leave. So I left, um, got my bridle
gown fitted, went out to lunch with my parents after
and uh, my fiance had called my mom and he said, hey,

(11:55):
you really need to talk to Rebecca about what happened
the other night because she's not being fully honest with
you and it's a situation that you need to know
about and she needs help with and I told her
exactly what happened, and she got on the phone with
the police right away and she said, hey, you know,
we called the other night because our daughter was missing,
and uh, it turns out she was assaulted by two

(12:16):
men and we don't know who they are, and UM,
we just don't know what to do. And so then
my parents took me to uh the hospital in our county.
It's in the county that it happened in, and UM,
we waited for probably four hours before I actually went
into the rape kit. And yeah, it was I think
I was at the hospital for about fourteen hours that day, um,

(12:39):
between talking to police, talking to the detectives, talking to
the nurses, having the actual rape kit done, um, and
then finally being released and sent home. Um. And then
from there, of course the report was filed. But what
about the rape kit? Who could administer them? Here's Renee.

(13:00):
Now you all definitely have heard of saying sexual assault
nurse examiners. So these are the gold standard in doing
uh forensic medical exams. They are trained nurses, they have
gone through the certification, They know about trauma, they know
how to work with the and empower the survivor, and

(13:21):
they know about the compensation process. So if you get
a rape kit done with the saying more than likely
all of those things are going to happen. They're gonna
let you know about the process. They're gonna help help
you understand that. You know you won't have to pay
for this, that it will be compensated. All of this

(13:41):
is taken care of. UM. You know, if you walk
into places like the Day League in downtown Decatur, you
know they have a same program right there on site
that they can do at no cost. There's advocates there,
they handle all of this. There's only like sayings in
all of Georgia, UM, we have a hundred and fifty
nine pennies. You know, we are a big state, so

(14:03):
more than not. UM. And this is especially for if
you live in a rural area. You may not have
access to someone who is extremely knowledgeable in this, and
so then it kind of becomes a craft. Shoot, what
is going to happen to you? It's just so inconsistent.
So there's what's supposed to happen, and then what does happen. UM.
Some hospitals we even turn you away. There was an

(14:25):
article done, I think it was in the Washington post
about this woman who experienced assault. She believe that she
was roofied. She woke up the next morning, she knew
something wasn't right with her body, and so her and
her fiancee, they were like, all right, let's go get
a kit done. So they go to the first hospital
and so they're waiting there those hours, not going to

(14:48):
the bathroom, not eating, not changing their clothes, waiting to
get that rape kit done. And eventually the hospital turns
them away and they're very confused, like we can pay
for this, Like we have insurance, we can pay. So
they go to another hospital. The hospital refuses them there, says,
we don't do these. She needs to go to this
other hospital. Um. Again waiting hours, not able to go

(15:08):
to the bathroom, and you're not supposed to drink anything.
She hasn't changed her clothes, she hasn't showered. Um. Finally
gives to the third hospital. UM. I think it's something
like twelve hours later. She's just been waiting and finally
she gets in to me. I think that case is
more common than not where those hospitals are not knowledgeable
about this process, and what happens is survivors just become

(15:30):
collateral damage and all of it. Why do you think
we have so few nurses SAE nurses. I think it
can be scary to know that you might have to
go and testify. I think that can be a fearful
situation where people don't even know what to expect. And
you can imagine if the nurse is afraid that that

(15:53):
was probably terrified as well as a trauma for a nurse.
As we had previously talked about, secondary trauma is very
very common, especially with people who are um immediate, people
who come to responding any of the emergencies, including doing
the rape kids. And I'm guessing also when it comes
to financially, they're not compensated for taking all this extra

(16:13):
training and taking all this extra stress. Um. One of
the things I did want to ask you you were
talking about the rape kit, do you mind telling it
was exactly from walking into the Dodger's office and was
first of all, was the nurse do you know if
she was a certified saying nurse, so she was not
um this and I will say my nurse was awesome. UM.

(16:36):
I have told people since that experience that I personally
felt like the rape kit itself was more traumatic than
the actual assault because in my particular case, and I
don't mean to, you know, put any like to say
that it was not traumatic, but because I did not
remember it, um, it was. It was worse having to

(16:57):
go to the doctor and have all of these things
poked and potted and taken from you and all this stuff. Um.
She was very sweet. She was her name was Erica,
and I've always wanted to track her down and just
write her a little like thank you know, because she
was awesome. I was waiting in this hospital room for
like ever, you know, because it took forever, I guess

(17:17):
for the police department to get the rape kit and
then get it over to the hospital. I know she
came into the room maybe thirty minutes before it happened,
and she was kind of like, hey, you know, this
is what we're gonna do. The detective is going to
drop off this box and it's going to have all
the instructions in it, and she's like, I've never done
one of these, and I just want to be really
honest with you. The girl who usually doesn't isn't here

(17:39):
today and she can't come in. I'm gonna be doing
this with you, and I've watched them done, but I've
never actually done one. If I have to read the
instructions more than once, I just don't want you to
be freaked out. I was like, I've never had a
rape kit done, so it's cool, Like we'll get through it,
you know. And um, she was really great. They had
to pluck fifty pubic cares and then um, I know

(18:01):
there was like an anal swab. Of course, there was
like the full pelvic examination and they had to bring
a doctor in for that portion. Um, there were there.
They had to like comb through things and like they
were little bags and all this stuff. It was I
mean it took about between three and four hours to
do just that. Um. And I know the pelvic exam

(18:22):
was the final thing. And at that point I had
been in there, you know for three and a half
hours or something with this nurse. And I also know
that they were not They wouldn't allow me to leave
the room to like use the bathroom or anything, you know,
for evidence purposes. I remember when she had to do
the anal swab, I started crying. I remember looking at
her after that and just being like, wow, like this

(18:45):
is traumatic for you too, Like you're gonna go home
and your partner is going to be like, how is
your day at work? And you're gonna be like, well,
I randomly had to do a rape kit and it
was horrible, you know. Um, but yeah, it was. It
was really rough, and um, I think it kind of
it just made me even more question why I had

(19:06):
gone to the police. It felt a little bit like
it was like, Okay, prove how much you want to
go through with this. Then at that point I went
through several um, for lack of a better word, interrogation
sessions with the detectives who were assigned to my case, um,
while I was still in North Carolina, and then flew
back to Seattle, and um, you know, at that point

(19:28):
I didn't really hear much from them. I would call
them a lot, but not get a lot of phone
calls back. Didn't hear anything. In April, I finally like
called and he answered the phone, and um, he said, oh,
I thought you knew the d A dismissed it like
back in October, and I was like, no, I didn't
ever hear that, And uh, you know since then, I've
called you several times. So that was very frustrating to

(19:50):
find that out. And at that point, UM, I know
that it had been almost a year since it had happened,
and I believe that I don't know, like the statute
of limitations or whatever in North Carolina is like one
or two years or something. It was like just on
the verge of like it, like I wouldn't be able
to do anything about it. Um, So at that point

(20:11):
I just let it go. The statutes of limitations in Georgia,
so under our law, prosecution for sexual assault is supposed
to happen just four years after the offense unless you
have DNA evidence, and then that statute of limitations goes away.
Any time that you have that to establish identity, it
extends things. It's very upsetting when it's like, oh, okay,

(20:35):
like you know, this really did happen to me. There
was like kind of a lack of evidence because I
went to get the rape kit later than I was
supposed to. UM, but you know, at the same time
it did happen, and UM as well, there was an
audio recording. There was an audio recording on my phone
that was about three and a half hours long, and

(20:55):
it was um from like the moment that we walked
into their house until you know, the audio recorder finally
cut off. I had no idea that that was on
my phone because I was like completely messed up. It's
like I did not ever remember hitting record. Um. And
in my final little interview or interrogation or whatever with
the police, they were like, oh, you know, UM, do

(21:19):
you remember like giving verbal consent to the police officers
when you were at the hospital to take your phone?
And I said, yeah, you know, of course, because I
didn't know where I was and they were going to
use the little GPS thing or whatever to navig like
to figure out where I had been to pinpoint who
like what house, and like who it belonged to and
all of this, and they, I guess at that point,

(21:40):
had found this recording. And so they had been sitting
on this recording for like a week and had not
told me about it. And they said, well, we found
this audio recording of this evening on your phone. Um.
And they were like, why don't you just sit in
here and listen to it, and we'll like, once you're done,
come and get us and then we'll talk more. And

(22:00):
I didn't listen to the whole thing because I couldn't
um in the audio recording, I sound completely drunk, like
out of my mind, like I do not sound like myself. Um,
it was very like traumatic to listen to. UM. And
beyond that, I am continually saying like no and stop
and don't and things like that, and um, I it's

(22:20):
just it's it was really difficult to listen to. And
then on top of that, it's like, Okay, they had
all that evidence, like they had that they had an
audio recording of me saying no and telling them to stop,
and that was not good enough. If that's not good enough,
then what is, according to Renee not rape kits. We'll

(22:42):
get into that after a quick break for word from
our sponsor. M H, we're back, Thank you sponsor, And
here's Renee. When we hear rape kits, you think like
this giants, you know, like DNA testing, this is fool proof,

(23:03):
you know, like I swabbed your DNA off my body,
like you clearly did this. But the science is not, uh,
does not prove lack of consent, which is what the
criminal justice system is really focused on. Um, it just can't.
Like all it can do is is kind of like

(23:24):
yes or no, and then it's up to us society.
The prosecutor law enforcement to interpret that and say did
something happen or did something not happen, which is where
all the bias starts to roll in because in that
interpretation process, what you guys may have heard about the
Detroit backlog um and how that was uncovered. So this

(23:47):
is the case of Calvin Ry Kelly, and for twenty
five years, this truck driver, Kelly, he would use his
knowledge of these freeway dark spots to prey upon low
income black women who would not be believed by police.
In two thousand and seven, one of these women, Shawanna Hall,
was held by Kelly at knife point in rape three
times in one hour. When she finally escaped, she flagged

(24:10):
down a police officer who drove her to the Kalamazoo
Y w c A for the forensic medical exam and
she got a rape kit. Our years Okay, so those
two thousand seven, Um, Detroit still HASH is not processing
their backlogs efficiently, and her kid just gets forgotten and
it's put into that warehouse whereas ultimately discovered and then

(24:32):
launched in. What I see is kind of this resurgence
about the backlog testing and going back. So after all
these years, um, you know it's her kids sits there
and then it getsists covered and then finally fundraised to
test it UM and eventually her kid gets moved to
the crime lab and it gets tested UM. And when

(24:53):
they test her kit, they find that Kelly's DNA matches
to eleven assaults from other rape kits in fourced eights
between nineteen UM. So now it's seen it's a full
ten years after she's assaulted UM. And they take him
to trial and in they go through the whole trial,
they present the rape kit evidence she want a Hall

(25:16):
gets up and testifies, someone else testifies. They present that
his DNA has been you know, this guy is clearly
see a rapist and we have evidence to prove it.
And the jury takes one day to deliberate, and the
jury has eight women and four men on it, mostly white.
Ten of the twelve jurors are white. And they say

(25:38):
he's not guilty and so infuriating. So then the Michigan
Assistant Attorney General, UM, you know, they will sometimes interview
jury's afterwards to be like, you know, like why did
this happen? And so the jury says they just didn't
believe her testimony because they didn't think someone like her

(26:00):
could be raped and so that they just didn't believe
the d n A. And then one month later she
Wanna died of an opioid overdose, so she never got
any justice at all. M Yeah, that's infuriating, Yeah, very
very much so. I mean, this whole episode is on
the cost of coming forward, and that illustrates so much

(26:22):
of it because just the mental and emotional toll in
the physical like everything you've gone through and you wait
and you wait and you wait, and you think, well,
I did what I should have done to get justice,
and then I still don't. Yes, they went through all
of that and nothing, and on top of not being

(26:43):
able to get justice, you're called a liar. You're being
judged based on your race and based on your economic
status that has nothing to do with whether or not
you can be victimized. But therefore you're not believable and
you're not worth the time of our society, of our people,
of our judicial system to actually stand up for I mean,
it really shows why DNA and rape kits won't save us.

(27:07):
I mean, they they can't do a lot, and like
the rhetoric around them is is a little bit of
a savior narrative. You know that they are going to
prove what happened to you, that they are gonna specifically
identify the assailant. And then the third one that gets
invoked a lot is that it will prevent future rapes.

(27:27):
And this responsibility is placed on victims to get it
by saying that you getting this rape kit is going
to prevent this from happening to someone else, And the
idea behind it is that you would get the rape
kit and somehow magically the colonel justice system is going
to be you know, quick, quick, quick, which whatever is.
You know, we're going to neatly wrap wrap up this

(27:48):
prosecution and now this bad guys off the street. But
that just never happens. I mean, look a brock turner
to eyewitnesses and a rape kit, and he has a
future with the want ruin his future. And that was
what I was going to say. Even if they are
prosecuted and they are convicted, who's to say it's actually

(28:10):
justice other than okay, you believe me, but you don't
believe that he is the criminal that we see him
as or the predator that he has come forward as.
And you're saying that his time was worth more than mine,
his life was worth more than mine, And it's still
just just as bad almost that you had gone through
and sacrificed your your livelihood essentially to try to get justice,

(28:32):
and in the end that justice is worth maybe ten days,
eight months, you know, any of those time frames, and
it's kind of like, is it really worth it or
they just pleaded down to something exactly, which is another
reason why it's difficult to measure like these rave kit prosecutions.
Like you look at the so there's that number um
that Rain has put out. You know, so for every

(28:53):
thousand people who are assaulted, only like four point five perpetrators, well,
you know get a felony conviction. Like the numbers are
just appalling. I think one overlooked problem is how much
the role of law enforcement and all of this um.
And there are a lot of wonderful law enforcement out
there that I'm friends with and partner with and and

(29:15):
do really great job. The law enforce might have a
lot of discretionary power and deciding to prosecute a case
or not. There that first step, and there's a lot
of cases to get unfounded. You know, there's roughly around
eighteen thousand police departments in the US. UM has a
lot of different jurisdictions who may come across a rape
kit who have their own protocols on what to do.

(29:38):
So even just tackling that issues a lot. But police
are that first step in saying, you know, we're never
gonna bother with your case, We're just gonna unfound it.
National Institute Justice has investigated UM Baltimore, Detroit into looking
into like what happens with with those rape kits in
the Detroit one. So of the eleven thousand, three hundred

(29:58):
forty one kits that just were forgotten in that warehouse, UM,
they disproportionately belonged to women of color. Wayne County, which
is that county is fifty four percent white, but one
percent of the rape kits belonged to black women. So
you know there's definitely disparities happening there and that law

(30:22):
enforcements racial biases can really come out. So the d
J did an investigation into Baltimore because the complaints were
so egregious about what was happening there. And in the
investigation they found that when police were investigating sexual assault
cases UM that they were using racial slurs against women.
UM systematically unfounding their cases, which is where you just

(30:47):
closed the case without investigating, just say, oh, nothing happened here,
We're just going to close it. Sorry, I don't want
to say that's the only reason that something is unfounded.
There's there's more reasons. But anyway, racial biases rampant. There.
Another aspect of the rape kit we need to talk
about is the financial cost. So the first thing to know,

(31:08):
the cost of getting your forensic medical exam in the
rape kit completed will vary by state. So most states
have a crime victims compensation law. So if you are
assaulted and you go to have your rape kit done
because you're a victim of a crime, that you should

(31:28):
not have to pay for it. And so in Georgia,
UM the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council has set some guidelines
about UM what it will cost to get a rape kit,
and they will reimburse you. UM, they will pay for
it up to a cost of a thousand dollars. It
turns out it cost a lot more than a thousand
dollars to get a rape kit done, often just for

(31:49):
the medical exam. UM is estimated that that cost three
in seventies cents just for the examination the in um,
the cost of that kit, the cost of the boxing swabs,
that's only six dollars in twenty nine cents, which is good. Um.
If you add on copuscopy, which is that camera that

(32:11):
can magnify and visualized trauma, that's two nine dollars. You're
in culture fifteen dollars, lab tests for pregnancy twelve dollars,
gonerigo culture eighty dollars, Clamydia culture thirty six dollars, hepatitis
panel eighty eight dollars, herpes panel fifty six dollars. Keeps

(32:33):
adding up, it's roughly sixteen hundred dollars to get your
rape kit done here in Georgia, according to Criminal Justice
Coordinating Council. So that's a lot of money. Um. Victims
survivors are not supposed to incur that cost, but if
the hospital personnel is not knowledgeable about the victims compensation process,

(32:57):
which can be very complicated, then that survivor can end
up and create those costs. We speak about. The cost
is the cost of getting it at the hospital, and
then there's like kind of these unseen costs that are
attached to the rape kit. You know, So on average
is to test the kit you know. So so now

(33:19):
there's a cost attached to that, which certainly, uh, the
survivors not incurring, but you know, that is still cost associated.
So there's the cost to UM staff law enforcement to
investigate the cases. You know, Atlanta is a very large city,
but our Special Victims unit is small. Um, just handful

(33:40):
of people who are investigating all these cases, and those
of you you want to do because they're at least
you know, more trained and used to investigating these cases.
And then you have the costs for the prosecutor, and
then you have the cost for the trial. So all
those things add up. So when we only talk about
you know, the backlog and testing, it's like, okay, first,
then we got to work to follow that case all

(34:01):
the way through, and then like dealing with the biases
the survivor isn't meant to encourage any of the cost
of the rape kid. But that isn't always the case.
Here was Rebecca about what happened after she got her
rape kid done. So after all of that, I remember
leaving the hospital and uh like checking out or whatever,
you know, and you you have to sign out and
all this stuff, and um, they gave me like prescriptions

(34:24):
for various things. I had a lot of prescriptions. It
was like the it was Plan B. It was like
an h I V prep thing. Um. That was fairly
new at the time too, I think, Um, like I
had to get a shot for like Gonorea or something.
I mean, there was a there was it was a
lot of medical stuff. Um. And when I left, we
went to a pharmacy and I got all of these

(34:46):
pills and I was like, you know, supposed to take
them all and everything. And that was really expensive. I
think that was like probably like three bucks. And I
had full insurance at the time. You know. I also
was told that I needed a schedule, like different appointments
to make sure that I was fine. Um, And I
know those were pretty expensive. I paid all of those
out of pocket and I don't have the receipts for

(35:07):
those anymore, but I would say probably upwards of like
six hundred bucks, you know. Um. And I had kind
of been like, okay, you know, the rape kit thing
is done, like, you know, no big deal. They had
told me, okay, you know for this medical bill that
you'll receive in the mail. This is when I checked
out the hospital. They were like, when you get it
in the mail, you need to send a copy of

(35:28):
it to Crime Victims Compensation. They gave me forms and
stuff at the hospital that I took with me to Seattle.
UM I had filled all those out. When I got
my first medical bill, I was shocked. I was just wrecked.
It was like four thousand and thirty two dollars or
something just for the rape kit, and UM. I was like,
oh my god. So I sent in all the stuff, UM,

(35:50):
and just kind of waited, um, you know, because it's
like a fairly long process. I at one point was
on like first name basis with this woman at the
Crime Victims Compensation this in North Carolina, because I would
call and be like, hey, what's the status with this?
You know, because I don't have four thousand dollars just
laying around. So I was assaulted in July. In February

(36:13):
of twenty seventeen, UM, I had received another bill from
a collections agency, which means that the hospital had sold
that debt to somebody. And UM, they were like, we
need you to pay this by next month. Um, and
it's four thousand dollars. So I called them and I

(36:34):
was like, clearly, there's been a mistake. I was like
I was assaulted, blah blah blah, and uh. They were like,
you just need to call Crime Victims Compensation because clearly
something got lost. So when I called in February of
the woman at Crime Victims Compensation was like, oh yeah, um,
I will look up your file really quick. And she

(36:55):
looked it up and she was like, oh, I see
what happened. The police depart meant never submitted their copy
of the police report. I was like, okay, well that's fine,
we can still have them do that, right, No, the
statute of limitations in North Carolina is such that at
that point in February it was past that. So even
if they had retroactively sent it, it was beyond the

(37:19):
time frame for it to be accepted. And so I
just spent the next year dealing with this collections agency,
trying to get them to understand, trying to get them
to talk to the hospital, talking to the hospital, explaining
to them, you know, um, nobody really seemed to care.
So I finally, I think last year, so in like

(37:39):
March of I set up a go fund me and
I was like, screw it, I don't even care. Who
knows if I've been raped? Like whatever, there's no shame
in that. Um. So I just shared it on my
Facebook and I was like, hey, guys, I need help
keeping my rape kit off of my credit history because
at that point the collections agency had said, if you
don't pay this, we're gonna send it. Um you know,

(37:59):
it will be on your credit history for the next
seven years. And it's like, look in seven years, what
I just want to be able to buy a car,
buy a home, like do something and not have to
be like, oh, yeah, I was raped this time. Through
posting that, I was able to raise the amount of
money I mean so quick, Like I think all of
my friends and even people that I don't know donated

(38:20):
to it, and I raised the exact amount of money
that I needed. And so that is now like taken
care of. But it sucks that it took that like that,
that my friends had to help pay for my rape kit.
That clearly is not an ideal scenario or outcome. What

(38:41):
should happen after you get a rape kit done. We'll
get into that after one more quick break for word
from our sponsor m H and we're back, Thank you sponsor,
and here's your name. This is this is where it

(39:03):
gets interesting. So there's what's supposed to happen, and then
there they're what does happen more terms than not, which
creates the inconsistency. So what's supposed to happen here in
Georgia is that the UM at the hospital, they send
that kit over to the g b I, the Georgia
Bureau of Investigation, and they will proceed with testing the kit. Um,

(39:26):
you can get a kit done and not report to
police also, so that you know, is another mediating factor
of where things can start to splinter off. So you know,
if you choose to report the police and the police
will have that report, they'll have that case open um
it should be associated with the kit. There'll be more
areas to follow up on. But you could just get

(39:49):
a kit done and you're not sure what you want
to do. So there were some issues UM a couple
of years back where some rape kits had been collected
at hospitals and they had not been transferred to the
g b I. And so what the reasoning was from
the hospital's perspective is they didn't know that they were
supposed to send them. They thought it was a violation

(40:10):
of the person's right to privacy, and so they didn't
send them. So when you just when you start looking
at rape kits, what you discover is you're supposed to
have this clear path from the hospital to um prosecution.
When the judges slamming the gavel and almost that every
point it the system becomes more complicated and in a

(40:33):
breakdown and makes it extremely difficult to tackle this issue
from either a system's perspective or even what it's like
to be a person caught up in this and experiencing
it can often be a total nightmare. And then in
terms of just researching it and trying to like wrap
your hands around what is in the world is going
on with rape kits, it just becomes very complicated. Something

(40:56):
else that is complicated is getting to the bottom of
any numerical data around rape kids. What I found out
is that that not like you cannot find that number UM.
And I dug deep, y'all. Like I even went as
far as to call the manufacturing companies who make rape
kits and just say how many have you sold? Like,
can you just even give me a ballpark number of

(41:17):
what that figure is? They did not tell me many
they sold, UM, But I you know, I kept digging
because I thought that might be one way to at
least know, you know, how many states have purchased these?
Could we check them year over year. So there's there's
no information on how many kits have been bought that

(41:40):
our public. UM. I might say there is an exception
for those states who um all use the same rape kit,
because then you could floya freedom of information after requests
um what state dollars were spent on rape kits. So
I'm a fan of states that do that because I
feel like there's a paper trail you can start to

(42:01):
dig and uncover. UM. But you know, as you might
have read with with the backlog, and part of the
issue of the backlog is that there was no list
of people keeping track. So right now we just don't know.
We know it's um, it's a lot, but we don't

(42:21):
know exactly how much. And even in the UM National
Crime Victimization Survey, which is often used to try to
estimate how many people have experienced sexual violence, there's this
is a national survey. UM, it's been done for decades. UM.
What they do is just like old school call like
cold call people and say hey, have you been a

(42:44):
victim of a crime, and then asked them like ninety
questions and if thousands of people respond and then they
use that to make the estimates. So there's one question
that it kind of gets at rape kits, and it
just asked if you had medical treatment afterward? Um, But
it doesn't specify rape kits. So even from the surveys

(43:07):
that we you know, we would normally use to try
to estimate the prevalence, we still cannot even get at
the number of rape kits that are done. Um, what
we do know is anecdotal. So you know, since Georgia
has been more proactive about doing its rape kits, the
gb I says it gets to fifty a month despite

(43:29):
its problems. Now, the rape kit was a revolutionary feminist invention,
meant to make it easier for survivors to get justice
when no one was advocating for them. But over the years,
the loss of oversight has plagued rape kits. The history
of the rape kit is a really fascinating story. So
back in the seventies in Chicago, this let's see about

(43:52):
seventy three, um, And this is before there was any
kind of victims rights movement. There's really no victim advocacy movement.
This is really kind of at the this fledgling time
in our national consciousness where we're like, hey, people who
have been victimized, we should care about them and advocate

(44:13):
for the rights. The system isn't treating them well exactly. Um.
So there was this woman, Marty Goddard, and she worked
in um she worked in other gender violence issues, and
she she went to this this meeting of these these

(44:35):
feminist women who are really upset, and they were upset
about how the police were treating rape victims. And they
were very fiery. Um. You know, they're like these cups
are pigs, Like we don't need them, we should do
it for ourselves. And she was sitting there and observed
the room and like half the room is like, you know,
f the man, we don't want anything to do with you.

(44:56):
And the other half was like, Okay, maybe you know,
we can try the problem save around that. So she
kind of went over to this other side and was like,
I'm a smart lady, maybe we can figure this out.
So she partnered up with this professor uh of the
University of Chicago, and the two of them are like,
we're just gonna do some basic research. We're going to

(45:18):
travel around Illinois. We have to travel for our jobs,
and we're gonna go cold call police officers. UM just
walk in and start asking some questions and see what
we can figure out. Hey, law enforcement, like can you
just tell me what's the deal with your rape cases?
Like what are the problems? What's doing this? And people

(45:39):
would talk to them. So they gathered all this evidence
and eventually they became friends with the Chicago crime Lab.
And the people in the Chicago Crime Lab we're like, Okay,
the real deal is we can't get anywhere on rape
cases because we don't get good evidence. The evidence that
we get is basically garbage. UM. The people the hospital

(46:01):
mean well, but they have no earthly idea what to do.
You know. They'll take, uh, you know, we'll swab your
cheek and put on one slide and then you know,
we'll swab another party body and put on this other
slide and then we'll just slap them together. So so
like no sense of UM how to handle you know,

(46:22):
forensic data. And she's like, okay, I can work with this,
and so she engages in this multi year process to
um create this rape kit in prototype it and so
she rallies some other people around and they build out
these protocols. They build out, you know, what the rape
kit should look like. And then um, they're like, oh,

(46:45):
we need funding. There's no funding for the rape kit.
It's the seventies. There's no victim advocacy. All of these
men control the grant funds. They you know, they give
money the girl Scouts. They think that's sufficient. Um, they
don't really want to support this, And so she hooks
up with some of her friends who connect her with

(47:06):
the Playboy Foundation. And the Playboy Foundation steps up and
they're like, yeah, this is a great idea. We're gonna
um completely fund the first ten thousand kids. And oh,
by the way, you need people to assemble it. Well,
we're gonna take these um it was called the Retired
Person's Volunteer Service r SPPE. We're gonna they think the

(47:29):
Playboy bunny is cute, so we're just gonna get these
folding tables, will buy the sandwiches, and like they are
just gonna assemble your kids. And so that is what happened,
like an assembly line of older persons at Playboy making it.
So it's like the best story, right. So so they

(47:53):
made she made the kit, and they actually even named
it after the guy in the crime lab. They didn't
even take the credit for themselves, which is why they
have kind of been erased out of this history and
why remembering it is really important because, um, they've never
been a part of it. So what they did to

(48:13):
implement the rape kit, you know, as this formal process,
was to have complete control over it. So when they
had been walking into these police departments and building up
all these contacts, they were really great at relationship building,
and so they were able to call up these high
powered politicians, people in the crime lab, members of law enforcement,

(48:36):
and they had this huge team of allies and they're like,
all right, we're going to roll out this massive training system.
And so these women did it for themselves. Again. Um,
they trained six thousand people over the course of two
years in Illinois on how to do rape kit, you know,
started teaching hospital personnel about this is what trauma is.

(48:59):
This is how, um, someone who's experienced violence, you know,
might present that might not make sense to you. Oh,
by the way, here are the proper ways to treat them, um,
which is not to take all their clothes and wrap
them in a paper gown, sent them on the Street
and then sometimes also call it the newspaper things that
would never happen. Now is very different, which is why

(49:20):
the victim advocacy movement is so critical. And so while
they were in Illinois, over the course of ten years,
they trained all these people and then eventually shut it
down because they thought that they were successful, that they
had done what they set out to achieve. And then
as the rape kit rolled out to these other states,
it didn't have that close oversight that Marty Goddard brought

(49:44):
and ensuring that people retrained properly, that they had this
iterative process of updating the forms, and so it as
the rape as it rolled out, um as it scaled up,
it lost that necessary oversight to make sure that hospitals
and law enforcement and victims are working together as a

(50:06):
team to make sure that these cases move forward. In
my opinion, it's not all bad news, though. There are
several steps being taken to improve the situation and things
we can do. Here's Renee again. I think what we've
seen over the past few years where people are like
clawing this issue out of the shadows, is very helpful,

(50:27):
Like it's not transparent and it should be more transparent.
People should know, like what Georgia or Atlanta's protocols for
how they cope with a sexual AsSalt case should be
very clear to everyone, Like we should know what the
order of operations are that something is going to happen.
You know, when this happens, your kid is here, um,

(50:48):
you know at this stage, then this happens. Um. Right now,
survivors don't even have basic rights to follow up on
the rape kits, you know. So that adds a whole
other layer of akeness to this process. So UM. And
much like with Marty Goddard, it's usually women who have
experienced assault who become really powerful activists in the space,

(51:11):
and that they are the ones who get this important policy,
either at the state level or the national level, UM
put in place. So I think we should celebrate those victories.
There was a woman she was assaulted while she was
at Cambridge. UM. She was an Asian American woman and

(51:33):
the statute of limitations in Massachusetts is fifteen years UM.
And she was told by law enforcement that she had
to call every six months to make sure that her
rape kit was not thrown in the trash. So this
talk about another cost having to you know, take all
this emotional time out of your life for years to
just ensure that your rape kit is not trashed. And

(51:53):
she ended up passing a national law on survivor's rights
and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize last year also,
which is great. Prevention is uh is great? UM. I
think also, you know, the legal system is never probably
going to be satisfying for a lot of social problems,

(52:16):
and this is definitely one of them. So I think
things that we can do is find other ways to
support survivors outside of the legal system, UM that we
can have a lot more control over and may be
way more meaningful to that person. So, you know, ensuring
that are sexual assault advocate. You know these social service

(52:36):
agencies who do this and do it well, you know
that we support them with our dollars and vocally, and
that we make sure that people know they're there, so
that if you are assaulted and you do want a kit,
and you do decide you want to pursue criminal justice,
that you can at least do it with someone who's
really on your side. So how about Rebecca, what does

(52:59):
she do to cope? I think it's taking me a
long time to not be ashamed of it, UM, and
I think that just comes with time. I think that
just space away from it. UM. You know, it's very
helpful and has always been very helpful for me. UM.
I think beyond that, sharing my story with close friends
of mine and family members has been completely invaluable because

(53:19):
I UM, I think and of course now with me too,
it's a little more it's out there. You know, hopefully
people more people recognize how many people that sexual assault
and rape has affected. UM. But I think prior to
you know, prior to that, it's like, oh, you know,
you are supposed to feel ashamed and you're supposed to
not tell anyone, and that feeling of being alone is

(53:42):
so UM. It's just it's just horrible because you feel
so ashamed because you're like, oh god, no one else
has gone through this, you know. And so for the
longest time, it was good for me because I was like, cool,
my parents know that this happened to me, and like
they love me anyway, you know. And UM, I think
just knowing that like that didn't define, um, anything beyond

(54:08):
beyond what happened, it was very helpful for me. I Also,
I'm a very creative person, so I'm I'm the type
that like I have to write things down, I have
to like get things out. UM. And like I wrote
a play about my experience and that was very helpful
because I was able to kind of process my trauma
that way. UM. And I co wrote it with a
very good friend of mine who also knows that that

(54:29):
happened to me, So that was very helpful because she
also was like, Oh, wow, this is really like messed
up that all this happened to you, you know. UM.
And I think just talking about it for me has
been very helpful. UM. Now that's that. I don't think
that's helpful for everyone and everyone's experience, UM, but for
my personal experience, just feeling like I can talk about

(54:50):
it is um more than anything. Uh, it just is
encouraging to me and it has helped me process the
trauma a little more. UM. I don't ever really feel
triggered by the me too thing. If anything, I feel
like it's makes me feel a little more empowered and
like I have a little more agency because it's not
just a single voice. No, it's not that about brings

(55:15):
us to the end of this episode, but before we go,
here are some resources from Renee. I think definitely local.
So if you go to the Georgia Network genasa dot com,
they'll list all twenty one of just twenty one, y'all
um of those registered saying programs and like everyone should

(55:36):
support them. They are doing some real deal work for
people huffing it on the ground completely thankless, um not
certainly not paid enough. UM. I think that's a great
place to start because the community and they are doing
the tough work. And then also, like Amanda uh Nuan's Rise,

(55:58):
you know, organizations like this that our nonprofit on the
ground trying to change, like fight for victims rights through policy,
we should also support them. So you know, like RISE
got the national um law in place about not being
able to destroy rape kids, but states have to also
adopt them. So you know, we start the movement here,

(56:20):
start the movement and your you know, whatever your home
state is, and get it. Get it that way, listeners,
If you have any resources from your state you'd like
to share, or if you need to be connected with someone,
please let us know. You can email us at mom
Stuff at how stuffworks dot com or find us on
Twitter at mom Stuff podcast and on Instagram at stuff
I've Never told You. Thanks so much to both of

(56:41):
our interviewees for agreeing to speak with us, Thanks as
always for producer Andrew Howard, and thanks to you for listening.
Thank you