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Was to use $35 million of money we received through federal forfeiture, to commit to fund rape kit testing around the country. there are major cities with rape kid backlogs, places like detroit, cleveland houston they for money are not ability to get the job done. >> for a prosecutor this is unusual, and speaking to a national problem with a solution that's not ideal, right? you're doing this because you think it's necessary but ideally someone else in these lots or federally would be doing this? >> it is ultimately the responsibility of the states and the federal government working together t...

Evidence can be the case of a rape that occurred 20 years ago, you were able to find a dna match and make an arrest of a man who was i continue rant and looks like he may be the person who perpetrated that rape. how often are you able to get successes going through this backlog and testing these kits. and also speak to the fact that frequently you are people who are repeat offenders so ire also not you're also taking a repeat offender off the street. >> i think it's a have -- for self-ish -- when detroit did its 2,000 initial rape kit testing out of the 11,000 backlog they matched crimes in 23...

Backlog and you indicated 29 cases filed and six convicted what that reflects is a national consensus that enough is enough and cities and counties around the country are i think being held accountable to reduce their rape kit backlog. houston is the latest example. new york did this in the early 2000 time period. >> new york and houston joining a small club of cities that have eliminated their backlogs, many around the country with many of these kits sitting sometimes for years. what are they not doing? >> i think it's principlely a question of -- it's a small price compared to the opportunit...

Rape kits in detroit. nationwide, experts estimate up to 400,000 reported rapes, some decades old, likely remain unsolved because rape kits like this one have not been processed, largely due to the high cost of pursing dna evidence. >> this is a problem for everyone and for every community. >> reporter: for years, advocacy groups have been pushing for federal money to help cities end the backlog. >> they cannot test their kits or investigate their leads means they are losing out on the opportunity and ability to hold the offenders accountable. >> reporter: finally, this year, a glimmer of hope...

>> dna should prove it's william harris. we have him in detroit when both attacks occurred. >> it's in here. >> you got to be kidding me. >> we've counted almost 7,000 kits. we think there might be as many as 16,000 kits here. >> have any been tested? >> about 1200. our lab was so screwed up, they shut it down two years ago. state lab does our cases now, but they don't have the money or the eyeballs to get through this mess. >> that's an illustration of a troubling situation actually playing out in many of our nation's cities. a severe backlog of rape kit testing. msnbc's ronan fairro has been...