The sexual assault problem we can't afford to ignore
INFORMS member Lawrence Wein of Stanford University, discusses the many factors that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of backlogged sexual assault kits languishing untested in police department storerooms across the U.S., resulting in continued assaults by perpetrators, cases that have passed the statute of limitation, and lack of closure for victims. Wein concludes that a large one-time investment in testing the nation's backlog and investigating the resulting hits will pay off, both from a cost-benefit analysis perspective, as well as for the victims of these assaults.