Bad Spending Policies
Not all government expenditures are bad things. This is something that needs to be absorbed into the cost of investigations:
Rape victims across the state are paying for their ill fortune in the most tangible of ways: a bill for the evidence kit needed to lock up the rapist.
The vast majority of the 3,000 or so emergency room patients examined for sexual assaults each year shoulder some of the cost of a rape kit test, according to state records and victim advocates. For some, it’s as little as a $50 insurance co-payment. For those without insurance, it’s hundreds of dollars left when a state program designed to help reaches its limit. …
“Rape victims are being treated differently than any other victim of crime,” said Monika Johnson-Hostler, executive director of the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault. “The county doesn’t charge me for fingerprinting if my house gets broken into.” …
But an analysis of state records and interviews with hospital officials and administrators at several of the state’s major insurers suggest that charging the patients is a widespread practice.
No obviously related posts.
Unfortunately, I believe these statements –
Leaders at the state Conference of District Attorneys were surprised to learn rape victims pay for their exams.
and
“Our CEO was shocked,” said Danyl Butler, the hospital’s director of business development. “It simply slipped by us. We didn’t know this was happening.”
The state of Connecticut has laws in place to prevent survivors from being billed for their evidence collection kit. CT Sexual Assault Crisis Services (ConnSACS) educated all hospitals about this from a billing/insurance perspective.
Does this mean absolutely no one is being billed? Probably not. But hopefully it’s a helluva lot more rare now.
I think it’s an outrage; a person is violated, and then has to pay to have it proven?
Law enforcement actions such as fingerprinting crime scenes come out of the police budget, but rape kits are done by the hospital. Some hospitals are in private business, some are non-profit private organizations, and some are publically funded – but even the public ones are working from a different budget.