Rape Kits
New legislation in Kentucky now requires the average turnaround time for sexual assault kit results be 60 days
Detective Ashley Nolan of the Chandler Police Department in Arizona details how her PD solved a sexual assault cold case from 1986
The Idaho Sexual Assault Kit Initiative focused on developing a model statewide policy for testing sexual assault kits
The long processing times were called into question last year when a man was convicted of a 2021 rape weeks after killing a woman in 2022
The backlog includes about 1,200 kits from before 2016 and 450 kits collected from 2016 to 2019
Tennessee Bureau of Investigations will send 1,000 rape kits if more grant funding becomes available
The police department’s crime lab stopped the practice shortly after receiving a complaint from the district attorney’s office
Agencies are heralding new legislature that, if passed, would standardize handling of sexual assault evidence statewide
The law will fund rape kit testing for police departments nationwide
The funding comes along with new state laws requiring police to promptly submit kits for testing to avoid a backlog
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said there is no excuse for the kits going untested, said the department will process and investigate
The SAKI Toolkit helps law enforcement, prosecutors, victim advocates, criminal justice professionals and others address rape kit backlog
Many states have enacted or are considering laws requiring that sexual assault evidence be closely monitored from collection to lab to court
Since there is no state law dictating which evidence should be tested, each department has discretion