I have a friend who was raped during her junior year of college.  As is more often the case, she knew her attacker by name.  But she did not report this crime, making her nightmare just one of the 59 percent of all rapes that go unreported in the United States. But as of 2009, all states will be required by the federal government to offer an option that will hopefully bring that percentage down considerably.

 It's called the Jane Doe rape kit and it gives victims the option to have a rape kit collected anonymously without police involvement.   A specially trained nurse takes DNA samples ofskin and bodily fluid, collects hairs and clothing and takes pictures of any visible injuries.  The evidence is then put in a sealed envelope with a number identifying its source.  This gives the victim the chance to think about pressing charges. And if and only if they decide to move forward with pressing charges, do the police become involved, match a name to the number and open the envelope.

The FBI has been recommending the Jane Doe rape kit since 1999. The reason is that victims (of those who even go to the hospital) frequently forgo rape kits because they aren't sure if they want to report the crime, which would require talking to police, in the aftermath of such a traumatic event. Cortney Fisher, the Victim Advocate at the University of Maryland, explains:

”The decision to report to the police is a huge one, and it involves the victim making a decision to hand over control of their case to another entity (the police) and the victim making a decision to expose themselves to their friends and family as a victim, as well as confronting the offender with his or her crime.  In the immediate aftermath of trauma, the victim isn’t even able to process a lot of those decisions and therefore, the decision is often made not to go to the police.”

Many women go home and wash away their best physical evidence.  If they decide days or weeks later to press charges, they're left with little or no physical evidence.  The Jane Doe rape kit will give victims a window of time to decide what they want to do before they have to go on the record.

Many clinics and the state of Massachusetts already offer the Jane Doe rape kits but many places refuse to pay for the kits, which cost about $800 dollars, if the crime goes unreported.

But it is foreseeable that giving all hospitals and clinics the ability to offer the kit without having to immediately involve the police will encourage more victims to have the physical evidence collected and ultimately press charges when they're ready to talk to authorities.

I'm not sure if the option of a Jane Doe kit would have changed my friend's mind when she decided not to go to the hospital, but Fisher believes that it will encourage more victims to come forward and help them successfully prosecute their attackers.