Earlier this week, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin revealed that the San Francisco Police Department has been, for potentially the last six years, cross-referencing DNA samples from criminal suspects against those of rape victims. Most recently, a woman was arrested for a felony property crime based on DNA samples provided at the time she reported a sexual assault.
SFWPC condemns the practice of using the DNA of assault victims to identify criminal suspects. Additionally, we ask why the privacy and protection of assault victims, who are generally women, are secondary to SFPD’s interests when they should be one and the same? What does this demonstrate about the current systems in place and how they value survivors of sexual assault, particularly women?
While we were gratified to learn that DA Boudin denounced and stated his office’s commitment to ending this widespread practice and dropped the charges, this new information raises serious questions regarding the treatment, criminalization, revictimization, and systemic failure to protect and serve sexual assault survivors, a majority of whom are women. This practice is particularly harmful to BIPOC survivors, who experience disproportionately high rates of sexual violence, and are already under-served by law enforcement and other city agencies.
This type of practice prevents individuals from reporting sexual assaults, for fear of being arrested, contributes to a brutal psychological effect on the population’s relationship with law enforcement, which is already fraught with tension and distrust, and raises important questions about the privacy and rights of assault survivors.
Not only does this policy discourage survivors who want to report, but it disincentivizes them from receiving the free medical services that are available to them following an assault; crisis services that are instrumental to connecting them to long-term support from local agencies and organizations. As Pamela Tate, the director of Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence, aptly stated, “Rape survivors do not give law enforcement a blanket waiver of their rights to not self-incriminate.” Such practices highlight the already present problem of revictimizing and criminalizing assault victims.
SFWPC calls on the San Francisco and wider political community to truly stand up for sexual assault survivors in practice, not just in words, including passing local or state legislation to explicitly prohibit this practice, providing truly independent and actionable reporting systems and tangible support for survivors. We ask for transparency throughout this process and collaboration with survivors and the local community organizations that serve them. Words are no longer enough. We need real and tangible action.
A copy of our statement may be downloaded here.
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