Steve Cohen: “First, I would like to express my appreciation for the career of Chairman Wolf, in particular, his cochairmanship of the…”

“First, I would like to express my appreciation for the career of Chairman Wolf, in particular, his cochairmanship of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. He has done tremendous work during his time in Congress on human rights issues that are of great import, and chairing that commission named for our great colleague Tom Lantos is impressive, and I thank you for that. The amendment I have before us would increase by $5 million the bill's funding for grants to address the backlog of sexual assault kits at law enforcement agencies. DNA analysis has been revolutionary in helping to catch criminals and prevent crimes from occurring in the first place, but this evidence does us no good if it remains untested and sits on the shelf in a lab somewhere. Despite progress over the last few years, the number of untested rape kits continues to number in the hundreds of thousands in our Nation. That is hundreds of thousands of victims whose assailants have never been brought to justice, left to prey on yet more women. A recent article in the Memphis Commercial Appeal highlighted the need to end this backlog once and for all. It described a serial rapist who was finally caught by the police in 2012. He could have been stopped nearly a decade earlier if only his first victim's rape kit had been tested. It was not, and instead he was able to and did attack five more women over the next 8 years. Missed opportunities like this happen all across our country every day.…”