DNA evidence unlocks cold cases, but sexual assault survivors still are victimized in the courtroom

Authors Campbell et al. noted that most sexual assault cases in the US never get prosecuted, and when they are, harmful stereotypes often cast doubt on survivors’ credibility. But recent federal funding has helped test DNA evidence contained in a backlog of thousands of rape kits in cities across the country, and prosecutors have been trained to use that evidence to reopen cold cases. In this paper, Campbell et al. wanted to better understand how survivors felt during their testimony in these reopened cold cases, and how they were treated by legal professionals. They used qualitative data from Campbell’s study, Evaluating a Victim Notification Protocol for Untested Sexual Assault Kits (SAKs): How Do Survivors Define Justice Years After An Assault?, Detroit, Michigan, 2019-2020, available in the ICPSR member-funded archive. The study participants were sexual assault survivors from Detroit, where efforts to reduce the backlog of untested rape kits had taken place. Victim advocates were able to find and interview 32 of 112 survivors whose rape kits had DNA that matched a suspect in the FBI’s national criminal database. These survivors had testified in court after their cases were reopened and DNA evidence was found to support their accounts. Nearly all described feeling anxious and humiliated when testifying. Defense attorneys frequently portrayed them as liars or suggested they had consented, and often characterized them as criminals, drug users, sex workers, or mentally ill. Campbell et al. concluded that while DNA evidence helped reopen these cases and increased prosecution rates, it did not fundamentally improve survivors’ court experiences or prevent retraumatization.

May 8, 2025

Each week’s Current Events in the Bib post focuses on one publication and summarizes it, in order to draw your attention to the key role that data from ICPSR play in current scholarship. These publications are chosen from the large collection of linked citations in the ICPSR Bibliography of Data-related Literature. Current Events in the Bib posts usually highlight publications that represent a timely issue in the news or a topic trending in the social or behavioral health sciences.

It is important to note that the works highlighted in each post do not represent ICPSR’s point of view. They describe others’ findings based at least in part on their reuse of a wide array of ICPSR data. The Current Events in the Bib posts include examples of reuse of data released recently and data released decades ago. Researchers find both valuable when investigating issues of today.