Open AccessINDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT, DATA GOVERNANCE AND THE TEMPORAL CONSTRUCTION OF FORENSIC EVIDENCE: THE MAKING OF THE FIRST STATEWIDE RAPE KIT TRACKING PLATFORM
Author(s) -
Renee Shelby
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12044
Subject(s) - corporate governance , temporality , law enforcement , sexual assault , criminology , criminal justice , data governance , champion , political science , public relations , sexual violence , state police , computer security , psychology , sociology , law , business , poison control , computer science , engineering , suicide prevention , medicine , data quality , operations management , metric (unit) , philosophy , environmental health , finance , epistemology
Police management of sexual assault kits (SAKs) has led to systemicdisorganization resulting in lost and forgotten forensic evidence. In response, advocateschampion 'sexual assault kit tracking platforms' as a pillar of survivor-centered andtrauma-informed approaches to rape kit reform at the state level and to create independentoversight over forensic processes. In 2017, Idaho became the first state to implement astatewide tracking platform. The Idaho Sexual Assault Kit Tracking System (IKTS) allows thepublic to track kits from distribution to collection, and testing at law enforcementfacilities. The emergence of tracking platforms raises questions about what governanceparadigms, data relations, and discourses these systems enable. I find concerns about"timeliness" and the temporal life of forensic evidence structured the creation, deployment,and maintenance of IKTS. I argue timeliness is a data governance paradigm with multiple andshifting meanings of temporality that comprise various legal, social, and datarelationships. I show how the discourse of tardy, slow, and untimely forensic evidence is amechanism to codify consistent statewide forensic practice and centralize legaldecision-making. The legislature's treatment of SAK disorganization as a problem ofunmanaged "temporality" assumes a view of evidence processing as merely and neutrallyunmechanized. On one hand, this treatment obscures how racialized rape myths shape policedecision-making; on the other, IKTS protocols offer some intervention. I argue this shouldnot be read as signs of a racial justice technofix, but as indications of the limits andpossibilities of a "technolegal" response to violence.