CLEVELAND — Ohio's attorney general today plans to announce a program designed to help alleviate a statewide backlog of more than 3,000 untested DNA samples from crime scenes.

        The financial-incentive plan, paid for in part by a $2.2 million federal grant, will encourage police departments to send stored rape kits to the state.

        A pilot program will be started with the Cleveland Police Department, then opened to all departments in the state, the Plain Dealer reported Sunday.

        About $200,000 of the grant money will be used to give $100 to Ohio police departments for every rape kit they submit, said Bret Crow, a spokesman for Attorney General Betty Montgomery.

        The rape kits, some decades old, sit untested in po lice evidence rooms across Ohio. The evidence, such as body fluids and hairs, often remained unexamined unless police had a suspect in the crime.

        The newspaper reported that rape kits go unanalyzed even though police no longer need to wait to find a suspect to take samples for comparison. The rape evidence can be compared via computers to cataloged DNA genetic samples from thousands of potential suspects.

        “Usually if there is a rape with no suspect and the victim does not stay active, they become cold cases and are pretty much forgotten about,” said Kellie Greene, an Orlando, Fla., rape victim whose own DNA evidence was not analyzed for three years.

        “I think most of the general public is under the impression that everything gets processed,” said Ms. Greene, who gives awareness seminars.

        About 4,500 rapes are reported in Ohio each year, according to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.

        “Any backlog means that rapists may be walking free,” said Jamie Zuieback, of the rape and abuse national network.

        There are 34,000 DNA profiles gathered in Ohio from convicted felons and crime scenes.

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