It’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of rape kits still sit untested in police facilities around the country.
Category Archives: Backlogs
Joe Biden: Every ‘Untested Rape Kit Means A Survivor Without Justice’
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Posted in Backlogs
When your body is a crime scene: New initiative to track rape kits
While the majority of sex crimes go unreported, according to U.S. Department of Justice data, victims who pursue criminal charges often spend years waiting for justice. In Washington, thousands of survivors who underwent sexual assault forensic examinations to provide police with evidence kits remain in limbo, not knowing what became of their kits and hoping a new state tracking system will provide a sense of closure and justice.
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Posted in Backlogs
Local Organizing Needed to Eliminate Backlog of Rape Kits
In 2015, President Barack Obama proposed the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI), a $41 million fund intended to reduce the backlog of untested rape kits sitting in storage around the US. As NPQ reported, the rape kit backlog is a priority for the Joyful Heart Foundation, which is privately funded. Fourteen years after Joyful Heart was founded and three years into the US Department of Justice’s SAKI grants program, what’s the status of the backlog?
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Posted in Backlogs, Cold Cases
More untested rape kits found as Hawley’s search continues
Former Gov. Eric Greitens signed a bill from state lawmakers that requires the creation of a more formal, electronic tracking system. The new law also will allow victims to access the system to track the status of their forensic evidence.
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Texans are raising thousands to test rape kits — now the Legislature needs to do more
The process is straightforward — or as straightforward as anything can be at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Texans renewing or applying for a driver’s license have the option to check a box and donate funds to help officials test backlogged rape kits in police departments across the state.
Five months in, the crowdfunding law has raised $250,000, with individual donations ranging from $1 to $5,000.
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Posted in Backlogs
Houston Forensic Science Center to use private laboratory to help eliminate backlog
HOUSTON – The Houston Forensic Science Center is working to eliminate their backlog by temporary utilizing a private laboratory for DNA testing.
The HFSC is planning to send most incoming DNA work to a private lab over about 10 months as it eliminates a backlog and builds a sustainable process that helps avoid future backlogs.
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Washington looks to Ohio as model for clearing rape kit backlog
“(Ohio) has done a remarkable job,” said Representative Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, one of the lead lawmakers working on Washington’s ongoing backlog. “They started a number of years ago, and I think they’re a leader in the nation that we really need to learn from.”
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After Crowdfunding Law, Texans Raise Nearly $250K Toward Testing Rape Kits
A state law that crowdfunds money for rape kit testing has collected almost a quarter-million dollars in its first five months, according to the bill’s author, state Rep. Victoria Neave.
The state has long been faced with a backlog of untested rape kits, which are gathered by police through invasive, hours-long exams of sexual assault victims and cost anywhere between $500 and $2,000 to test. The most recent data made available by the Texas Department of Public Safety shows a backlog of more than 3,500 untested rape kits statewide — meaning there may be even more untested kits in Texas today.
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Posted in Backlogs
New rape-kit rules intend to eliminate confusion, backlog for survivors
A new Missouri law orders the state to create guidelines for testing, processing and storing rape kits, which collect DNA evidence from victims of sexual violence.
After a person is sexually assaulted, investigators can submit DNA evidence in the form of a sexual-assault kit, which police run through a database to help find the perpetrator.
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Site helps sex assault survivors track rape kits
TAYLORSVILLE — More than eight years after forensic nurses collected evidence in her sexual assault case, Alyson Ainscough found out the rape kit had not been sent to Utah’s crime lab.
“It was a kit that had sat on the shelf and fallen through the cracks,” Ainscough said. She learned the 2007 kit had been forgotten when she called to ask about its status — a conversation she believes led police to forward it for forensic analysis.
On Wednesday, public safety managers announced a new tool they hope will help prevent similar experiences for others who report sexual assaults. A recently created website allows victims to track the progress of DNA evidence in their cases much like they would follow the path of a mail delivery online.
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Posted in Backlogs
3,500 rape kits are overdue for analysis in Alaska
ANCHORAGE (KTUU) — A backlog of nearly 3,500 completed sexual assault evidence kits could be resolved in two years with $2.75 million added to the state’s capital budget by the Alaska Legislature before it adjourned earlier this month.
The evidence in the test kits — tissue swabs, clothing, hair, skin, blood — were gathered by investigators around Alaska according to state Department of Public Safety officials. But the kits remained in the custody of troopers and local departments — 53 percent are held by Anchorage police. The non-analyzed kits came off the state’s priority list because they weren’t needed to prosecute criminals, or there wasn’t the money budgeted to run the tests.
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As state clears sex assault kit backlog, teams work to empower victims
MADISON, Wis. (WBAY) – The last batch of unsubmitted sexual assault kits has been sent to labs for testing, Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel announced Tuesday.
Schimel says testing will be complete by the end of 2018. Clearing the backlog of cases was the mission of Wisconsin’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative.
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Minnesota’s rape kit reform bill becomes law as Duluth passes a milestone on its backlog
In Minnesota’s most ambitious effort to process untested rape kits, the Duluth Police Department has eliminated its entire backlog and submitted 415 kits for laboratory testing, a step that could open the door to justice for scores of sexual assault victims.
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Posted in Backlogs
Rape victims in Washington can now track status of rape kits online
SEATTLE — Up to 10,000 rape kits in Washington state have yet to be tested and it’s left a lot of survivors in limbo.
“It is impossible to navigate this system,” said Leah Griffin, who was raped in 2014.
“I assumed that when I went through the six-hour procedure to have a rape kit done that it would result in an investigation, that police would test that kit and look at the evidence,” she said. “I didn’t find out until months later that they had no intention of testing my rape kit.”
Griffin spent those months futilely waiting by the phone for investigators to follow up. A year later, she helped pass state legislation that mandated testing rape kits.
Now it’s her hope that a new website tracking rape kits will give victims information that she never had.
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Posted in Backlogs
The Rape Kit Backlog Shows Exactly How We Regard Women In This Country
You don’t matter.
That’s the message every survivor hears loud and clear when a rape kit goes untested. Behind every kit is a person ― usually a woman ― who has been brutalized in the most intimate of ways. And yet there are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits currently sitting in police storage across the country.
So, how did we get here?
That’s the question actress and activist Mariska Hargitay answers in her new HBO documentary “I Am Evidence,” set to air April 16.
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