Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced $41 million in grant awards on Thursday to eliminate or reduce the number of untested sexual assault kits across the country, an event that highlighted Biden’s long record of working to curb violence against women as he continues to test the waters for a presidential run.
Biden and Lynch announced the grants as they stood alongside New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance at the Medical Examiner’s office in New York City. The grants will be combined with $38 million from Vance’s office in an effort to eliminate the backlog of untested rape kits in 27 states across the country.
Rape kits, Biden said, are an essential tool in modern crime fighting. Studies show that law enforcement can solve up to 50 percent unsolved rape cases when these kits are tested.
In lengthy remarks, Biden recalled how in 1990, as a senator, he introduced the Violence Against Women Act, a landmark measure that changed the way the country responded to domestic violence and sexual assault.
The vice president recalled the reactions of some older male senators when he first introduced legislation making it a crime for a husband to rape his wife.
“There was a senator at the time [who said] that my young friend just doesn’t understand … sometimes a man has to use force,” Biden recalled.
Biden thanked the rape survivors who participated in the Thursday event for standing up and telling their stories.
“It takes an enormous amount of courage to stand up and say what happened to you because you relive it when you tell it … it never really goes away,” he said.
Biden also mentioned the work his late son, Beau Biden, did to solve more rape cases of when he was Delaware attorney general. “First thing he did as attorney general was end the statute of limitations” on rape crimes, Biden recalled.
“Because of what you’ve done and people like my son in Delaware did,” he said, more women and men who were victims of rape are coming forward.
“They say, ‘Maybe I will actually get justice. Maybe someone will pay attention to me,'” he added.
