Video of Mariska Hargitay, Chris Meloni, Ice-T and Jennifer Love Hewitt speaking about the rape kit backlog issue & ways you can support this cause of ending this tragedy
September 29, 2010
September 26, 2010
Ending the Rape Kit BackLogs
I have not blogged in a while. Unfortunately trying to juggle a full time job and being a full time student is quite a circus act. But I will be more diligent to this blogging of mine. I have a lot to catch up on which includes various fun things including my 21st birthday in New York City back in July (Geez), but this blog will focus on a very important, but hardly known topic. It is especially coming into the spotlight right now. With the experiences of what I have been involved in the past few months as an advocate myself, this is a topic I knew not a whole lot about but have been increasingly more passionate about.
What is sure to be the performance of her career, Jennifer Love Hewitt is going to be guest starring on a very special Law and Order: Special Victims Unit next Wednesday September 29, 2010 where the important issue being highlighted this time will be the rape kit backlogs here in the United States. Can you imagine going through one of the most horrifying moments of your life, being sexually assaulted or raped by an unknown attacker and then having the bravery to go to the hospital to have a 4-6 hour invasive forensic medical examination rape kit done where your body is swabbed, plucked, and scrapped to collect evidence. Then imagine that evidence box that holds the DNA that could possibly catch that unknown assailant is sealed, locked up, untested, and stored away somewhere in a police station or crime lab storage facility for years. Years! Imagine how you could ever feel safe again. Thousands of these stories reflect the true life tragedies that a victim must re-endure when a rape kit goes untested.
There are so many issues surrounding why there are so many kits that are untested. CBS once reported over 20,000 nationwide. One issue that is causing this staggering number is that it might cost $1 million dollars to hire new testing staff to test the backlogged kits. Raising these funds might possibly lower the number of re-victimized victims down to about 2,000 kits it is said but as we know, even one untested kit is too many. There is some good news, however. New York State has done away with their backlogs and every single rape kit is tested now. Once that happened, the rape conviction rate changed from 40% to 70%! Whatever the probelem may be, wheather it be lack of funding or staff in crime labs, the real problem is that it’s unacceptable consciously letting potentially dangerous perpetrators walk and this problem needs to be eradicated everywhere. It’s not a hopeless fight. If New York can do it, one of the cities with the highest crime rates in the country, the rest of the country can surely follow.
Law and Order: SVU’s Mariska Hargitay, the founder of The Joyful Heart Foundation, in collaboration with Sarah Tofte, a researcher from the Human Rights Watch and her involvement as The Joyful Heart Foundation’s Director of Advocacy, have joined forces in their promotion before this special episode airs and will continue to join efforts in the foundation to shed light to other issues surrounding sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and rape. (In fact, they will be on the NBC Today Show at 8am on Tuesday September 28.) Hopefully when this episode is viewed, people will not turn away from the horror that is being presented but rather turn that into a energy that is positive, good, and productive and assist and be advocates like Mariska, Sarah, myself, and perhaps you, to help end this problem. Anyone can be an advocate and you don’t have to be a celebrity to make a change. Many people via social networking sites are coming together after the recent promotion and the sneak peaks of next week’s episodes. There is even a Twitter trend, #endthebacklog that has been started. When done right, social networking can be an amazingly powerful, technological tool in raising awareness.
Speaking of social networkers, I have to give credit to Jess, who runs www.mariska-online.com. Her site is the best site to go to for Mariska Hargitay news. The site is always updated and she is constantly on the ball. I’ve been getting a lot of my information from her site especially as updated news comes in about this issue. Other Law and Order: SVU information can be found at www.nbc.com as well as other of your favorite NBC shows. In fact, Mariska Hargitay recently posted on NBC’s production blog about this episode and the issue surrounding it and probably more well versed then I could for which you can read here. Neal Baer, the executive producer for Law and Order: SVU has a Twitter account for which he constantly keeps us, the fans, in the loop with sneak peeks, articles, and replies and we could not love him more for that. (www.Twitter.com/NealBaer) Mariska Hargitay’s direct website is www.Mariska.com where she indeed blogs herself and has guest blogs. She also has many links on her site including a number of free resources for victims, and a link to her great non-profit foundation, The Joyful Heart Foundation www.JoyfulHeartFoundation.org as well as their twitter account (www.Twitter.com/TheJHF)
This is a clip of Mariska Hargitay singing the praises of Jennifer Love Hewitt's work on the episode and explains the backlog issue.
Below is a clip preview from next week’s episode.
What Powerful emotion. Tell me that does not make you want to watch more?
I promise I will blog once again about the usual happy stuff but I’ll probably blog about this topic once the episode airs again. It’s a blog, what do you expect, I bounce all over the place. Haha. Blogger's ADD. Soon I’ll post some fun pictures from my birthday on Broadway, but if you know me, when I get on a soapbox, I just have to say something.
If you feel the same way I do, say something. Band together! It does not have to be like this. We can all be an advocate and make a change for the better. We cannot eliminate crime completely, but we can reduce the number of re-victimized survivors of these crimes. And that is the important thing to remember, they are survivors, with a journey, a voice, a story to be heard, and a life of not living in fear that justice will not be served in their favor.
What is sure to be the performance of her career, Jennifer Love Hewitt is going to be guest starring on a very special Law and Order: Special Victims Unit next Wednesday September 29, 2010 where the important issue being highlighted this time will be the rape kit backlogs here in the United States. Can you imagine going through one of the most horrifying moments of your life, being sexually assaulted or raped by an unknown attacker and then having the bravery to go to the hospital to have a 4-6 hour invasive forensic medical examination rape kit done where your body is swabbed, plucked, and scrapped to collect evidence. Then imagine that evidence box that holds the DNA that could possibly catch that unknown assailant is sealed, locked up, untested, and stored away somewhere in a police station or crime lab storage facility for years. Years! Imagine how you could ever feel safe again. Thousands of these stories reflect the true life tragedies that a victim must re-endure when a rape kit goes untested.
There are so many issues surrounding why there are so many kits that are untested. CBS once reported over 20,000 nationwide. One issue that is causing this staggering number is that it might cost $1 million dollars to hire new testing staff to test the backlogged kits. Raising these funds might possibly lower the number of re-victimized victims down to about 2,000 kits it is said but as we know, even one untested kit is too many. There is some good news, however. New York State has done away with their backlogs and every single rape kit is tested now. Once that happened, the rape conviction rate changed from 40% to 70%! Whatever the probelem may be, wheather it be lack of funding or staff in crime labs, the real problem is that it’s unacceptable consciously letting potentially dangerous perpetrators walk and this problem needs to be eradicated everywhere. It’s not a hopeless fight. If New York can do it, one of the cities with the highest crime rates in the country, the rest of the country can surely follow.
Law and Order: SVU’s Mariska Hargitay, the founder of The Joyful Heart Foundation, in collaboration with Sarah Tofte, a researcher from the Human Rights Watch and her involvement as The Joyful Heart Foundation’s Director of Advocacy, have joined forces in their promotion before this special episode airs and will continue to join efforts in the foundation to shed light to other issues surrounding sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and rape. (In fact, they will be on the NBC Today Show at 8am on Tuesday September 28.) Hopefully when this episode is viewed, people will not turn away from the horror that is being presented but rather turn that into a energy that is positive, good, and productive and assist and be advocates like Mariska, Sarah, myself, and perhaps you, to help end this problem. Anyone can be an advocate and you don’t have to be a celebrity to make a change. Many people via social networking sites are coming together after the recent promotion and the sneak peaks of next week’s episodes. There is even a Twitter trend, #endthebacklog that has been started. When done right, social networking can be an amazingly powerful, technological tool in raising awareness.
Speaking of social networkers, I have to give credit to Jess, who runs www.mariska-online.com. Her site is the best site to go to for Mariska Hargitay news. The site is always updated and she is constantly on the ball. I’ve been getting a lot of my information from her site especially as updated news comes in about this issue. Other Law and Order: SVU information can be found at www.nbc.com as well as other of your favorite NBC shows. In fact, Mariska Hargitay recently posted on NBC’s production blog about this episode and the issue surrounding it and probably more well versed then I could for which you can read here. Neal Baer, the executive producer for Law and Order: SVU has a Twitter account for which he constantly keeps us, the fans, in the loop with sneak peeks, articles, and replies and we could not love him more for that. (www.Twitter.com/NealBaer) Mariska Hargitay’s direct website is www.Mariska.com where she indeed blogs herself and has guest blogs. She also has many links on her site including a number of free resources for victims, and a link to her great non-profit foundation, The Joyful Heart Foundation www.JoyfulHeartFoundation.org as well as their twitter account (www.Twitter.com/TheJHF)
This is a clip of Mariska Hargitay singing the praises of Jennifer Love Hewitt's work on the episode and explains the backlog issue.
Below is a clip preview from next week’s episode.
What Powerful emotion. Tell me that does not make you want to watch more?
I promise I will blog once again about the usual happy stuff but I’ll probably blog about this topic once the episode airs again. It’s a blog, what do you expect, I bounce all over the place. Haha. Blogger's ADD. Soon I’ll post some fun pictures from my birthday on Broadway, but if you know me, when I get on a soapbox, I just have to say something.
If you feel the same way I do, say something. Band together! It does not have to be like this. We can all be an advocate and make a change for the better. We cannot eliminate crime completely, but we can reduce the number of re-victimized survivors of these crimes. And that is the important thing to remember, they are survivors, with a journey, a voice, a story to be heard, and a life of not living in fear that justice will not be served in their favor.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
