Mariska Hargitay of Law and Order SVU Fight Crime In Real Life; Joins Prosecutor to Help Rape Victims

Mariska Hargitay, the Law and Order SVU star, is fighting real-life sex crimes. Actress Mariska Hargitay is joining Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy in talks about proposed legislation that would speed up sexual assault kit testing.

The prosecutor, Kym Worthy's office has been wading through sexual assault kits for years. The cases were recovered in 2009 from a police storage facility in Detroit. The Kits contain DNA and other evidence from rape cases. Most of the of the 11,000 kits never were tested in a lab. Mariska Hargitay plays a sex crimes investigator on "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit." The actress is working to have thousands of backlogged rape kits tested in Michigan.

At a news conference in Detroit yesterday, Hargitay tried to raise awareness about the backlog of rape kits across Michigan. Hargitay says the budget cuts left the county prosecutor's office "severely understaffed."

Hargitay said "Every day in the United States women and men take the courageous step of reporting their rape to the police. And because of what those individuals have suffered, their bodies are crime scenes. They're living, breathing, feeling crime scenes from which doctors and nurses collect evidence in a sexual-assault collection kit."

Detroit has thousands of unprocessed rape kits on shelves. Hargitay's organization, the Joyful Heart Foundation, will try to help with the backlog.

Mariska Hargitay and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy introduced legislation that would put processes and timelines in place for the processing of rape kits. This will give victims the opportunity to give greater input.

Hargitay is the daughter of actress and 1950s-era sex symbol Jayne Mansfield and the Hungarian-born former Mr. Universe Mickey Hargitay. Hargitay was crowned Miss Beverly Hills USA in 1982. Hargitay is founder and president of the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization established in 2004 to provide support to survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse.