In 2011, the Texas state legislature passed a bill requiring law enforcement agencies to count the untested kits in their evidence rooms and report their numbers to DPS. Despite an October 2011 deadline, few agencies complied with the reporting requirement.

To date, approximately 130 of more than 2,600 police agencies have submitted their backlog numbers, including many of the biggest agencies. Among the reporting agencies, there are 15,900 untested rape kits. Based on that number, DPS estimates there to be roughly 20,000 untested kits statewide.

To clear a backlog of that size, DPS believes it will cost between $7 million and $11 million. When the state legislature meets for its 2013 session, it will discuss how to pay for testing. State officials are hopeful that the U.S. Congress will pass the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Registry (SAFER) Act, which would create a national registry for rape kit evidence and amend current law to require a greater percentage of Debbie Smith Act grant funds be spent directly on analyzing untested DNA evidence. The U.S. Senate passed the SAFER Act on New Year’s Eve, but it failed to pass the House and will be re-introduced in the new session.

Some Texas law enforcement agencies are already seeing results from their efforts to clear the backlog. In Houston, where fees collected from strip-club patrons help to fund the processing of untested rape kits, testing led to the arrest of a man for a rape that occurred ten years ago.

After the bill passed out of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) said:

“Victims of sexual assault have already gone through enough. They shouldn’t have to wait unnecessarily for justice. Today’s passage of the SAFER Act in the Judiciary Committee brings us closer to helping local law enforcement reduce backlogs of rape kits and bring criminals to justice. This bill will support those efforts and enable these agencies to stay on top of their work.”

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) added:

“Today we took a large step toward ensuring justice for victims of sexual assault. I’m encouraged by the bipartisan support the SAFER Act received in the Judiciary Committee and look forward to a vote on the Senate floor.”

As we have previously shared, Joyful Heart supports the SAFER Act as a step toward shedding a light on the hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits in police and crime lab storage facilities across the country. Each untested rape kit represents a missed opportunity to bringing healing and justice to a survivor.

• Increasing the percentage of Debbie Smith Act grant funds that must be spent on analyzing untested crime scene evidence;
• Providing state and local governments with funding to conduct one-year audits of the untested sexual assault evidence in their possession;
• Creating a national database maintained by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to track those audits, and
• Requiring greater tracking of how Debbie Smith Act grant funds are spent.

The SAFER Act amends the Debbie Smith Act, which provides federal grants to eligible states and local governments to conduct analyses of backlogged DNA evidence. Joyful Heart encourages Congress to pass the SAFER Act because it addresses several concerns we have about the current version of the Debbie Smith Act.

The SAFER Act will ensure that more Debbie Smith grant funds are awarded directly to state and local governments to end the rape kit backlog. The Act will amend current law to increase the percentage of Debbie Smith appropriations grantees must use to analyze untested DNA crime scene evidence, or enhance the capacity of labs to do so, from 40 percent to 75 percent.

The national sexual assault forensic evidence registry, the DOJ-managed database, will increase grantee accountability by ensuring they are spending funds on auditing the untested rape kits in their possession. In turn, grantees will be better able to prioritize the analysis of untested rape kits and target Debbie Smith appropriations. They would be required to identify and upload to the registry a small number of pieces of critical information about each audited rape kit, such as: (1) the date of the sexual assault to which the kit relates; (2) the jurisdiction in which the sexual assault occurred; (3) the date on which the statute of limitations for the sexual assault in question would bar prosecution; and (4) the testing status of the rape kit.

The registry will also assist the DOJ in determining which jurisdictions have a greater need for Debbie Smith funding, and how much of that funding they need to eliminate their backlogs. Finally, the registry will create greater public awareness about the backlog by requiring the DOJ to make information gained through the audits available on a public website.

Joyful Heart calls on Congress to pass the SAFER Act, which currently has bipartisan support in both chambers, and ensure that more of the 400,000 untested rape kits across the country are tested, bringing justice to the survivors those kits represent.

An FBI advisory board voted on December 6 to expand the definition of rape and sent the final decision on to Director Mueller. While testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mueller explained his support for updating the definition:

“That definition was in some ways unworkable, certainly not applicable—fully applicable—to the types of crimes that it should cover.”

The new definition states that rape is “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” In updating its terminology, the FBI removed the requirement that a rape involve force and expanded its reach beyond only female victims.

The updated definition of rape will allow local law enforcement agencies to report more sexual assaults to the federal government. In turn, the Uniform Crime Report, the FBI’s annual report on crime statistics, will give a more accurate picture of sexual violence that is reported throughout the country.

With a grant from the federal government’s Office on Violence Against Women, the team created the “400 Project” to test 400 randomly selected kits from the backlog in order to determine the nature of the evidence and what kinds of cases are connected to the backlog. Among the 400 tested kits was a fourteen-year-old kit containing DNA evidence linking Antonio Jackson, now 38 years old, to the 1997 home invasion and rape of a woman at gunpoint. It is alleged that Jackson broke into the victim’s home at 3:50 a.m. on February 17, 1997, held her at gunpoint and raped her while her children slept in the same bed. He now faces charges of first degree criminal sexual conduct and home invasion and felony firearm charges.

The 400 Project is the first phase in a multi-phase approach to eliminating Detroit’s backlog. Detroit is one of two cities participating in a grant funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to study, plan and implement rape kit reform. Joyful Heart is a collaborative partner in this effort. Out of the project, the NIJ hopes to create a national standard for rape kit testing. As expressed by John Collins, Director of the Michigan State Police Forensic Science Division:

This is such an emerging problem that has revealed itself on the national level. There’s not a national standard on how you make these decisions of what you test and in what order. In some extent, it’s like building the plane as you fly it.

The only type of sexual assault on which the UCR currently collects data is “forcible rape,” defined as “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will.” That definition excludes a number of crimes, including rapes where the victim was drugged or under the influence of alcohol, and all male victims of sexual assault.

Given the definition’s exceedingly narrow scope, many sexual assaults are not counted as rapes in yearly federal reports that are used to track crime rates in the United States. This under-reporting misleads the public about the prevalence of rape and results in fewer resources for both preventing future sexual violence and supporting survivors.

In mid-September, members of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), including representatives of police agencies from various cities, met with FBI officials and survivors’ advocates to discuss making the definition more inclusive. The proposed change must now go through an FBI working group later this month and an FBI advisory group in December.

Campaigning by advocates and consensus among local law enforcement agencies created the impetus to change the UCR definition. A recent PERF study reported that 80% of 306 responding police agencies believe the FBI definition is inadequate. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey has spearheaded the effort within PERF. He testified about the under-reporting of rape before the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs in September 2010.

We are hopeful that the FBI will take a big step toward bringing healing and justice to survivors of sexual violence and make this much-needed and long-awaited change to the UCR. Thank you to the advocates and law enforcement officials who have worked to make this change possible.

The funding, administered by the National Institute of Justice, a branch of the US Department of Justice, is the first of a two phase project. According to the press release:

In Phase I, for which this FY 2010 funding was awarded, researchers will team up with representatives from the police department, crime lab, prosecutor’s office and community-based victim services organizations in Wayne County and Houston. The teams will develop a strategy to tackle their problems, with special emphasis on how and when to notify victims when their SAK (which may be years old) is going to be tested.

In Phase II of the project, NIJ seeks to provide additional funds to help the two jurisdictions implement their strategies and evaluate their effectiveness. NIJ anticipates that these two projects will produce transportable lessons and strategies for other jurisdictions experiencing similar problems.

Joyful Heart is thrilled that both jurisdictions will have the opportunity to research and develop strategies to end their backlogs. An article from the Texas Tribune in late January reported that Houston has 16,000 untested rape kits in police storage facilities. Detroit, Wayne County’s most populous city, has at least 7,000 untested rape kits, and according to Wayne County District Attorney Kym Worthy, there may be as many as 10,000 – 16,000 kits in law enforcement storage when all of Detroit’s untested kits are accounted for.

The action research project steps, courtesy of the National Institute of Justice

President Obama and Vice President Biden announced the grant opportunity at the White House during a Domestic Violence Awareness Month event in late October. Mariska Hargitay, Joyful Heart’s Founder & President, Maile Zambuto, our Executive Director, and Sarah Tofte, Director of Advocacy & Policy, were at the White House for the announcement–you can read Sarah’s post about it here.

Joyful Heart enthusiastically committed to supporting Wayne County, Michigan as an unfunded partner in the project. In this role, Joyful Heart staff will work collaboratively with the project partners to identify and understand the factors that caused or contributed to Detroitʼs sexual assault kit backlog; develop strategies for eliminating the backlog; develop protocols and best practices for the processing of sexual assault evidence that can translate to other jurisdictions across the country; and identify and support implementation of strategies for improving the response of the criminal justice system to victims of sexual assault from the victimʼs initial report through prosecution. Joyful Heart will also provide Wayne County’s community of sexual assault responders and advocates with access to our Heal the Healers program, including a series of workshops on secondary trauma, healing, and self-care. We are so excited to be a part of this opportunity.

You can read the full press release from the Department of Justice here.

From the article:

About 60 kits per month will be sent to the State Police lab and then will be forwarded later to Marshall University for analysis.

The Police Department’s crime lab, which was decimated in Katrina, has a backlog of several years in testing the evidence kits. This sort of evidence is crucial to investigations.

Committing time and resources to testing sexual assault evidence is crucial to resolving backlogs like this one. In November, CBS reported that the Louisiana state lab was struggling to work its way through a backlog of hundreds of kits, some as old as eight years.

Hopefully the extra help and renewed energy will make a difference for New Orleans.

Read the full article here, and continue to check back here for more updates from across the country.

Sarah Tofte: Tell me a bit about your background and how you got interested in issues around rape kit reform.

Kristina Rose: I have been working for about 25 years on crime and criminal justice issues. In the 1980’s, I was lucky enough to serve on a county crime victim board that addressed crime victims’ concerns, and that is where I got my first introduction to violence against women issues. Hearing crime victims tell their stories, especially around domestic violence and sexual assault, really moved me.

When I worked at the Office on Violence Against Women I had a great boss who supported the projects I felt most strongly about, which included sexual violence issues. I became very interested in best practices for treating victims of sexual assault, especially involving the forensic examination. We developed a virtual training DVD with Dartmouth Medical School and as part of that project, I produced a segment involving interviews with victims about the experience of their sexual assault kit exam. The interviews really opened my eyes to what it means for a victim to go through an exam. I would spend two to three hours with each victim, going through every detail they wanted to share with me about the assault and the forensic examination. What I came away with was the knowledge that the way in which a forensic exam is conducted—how good the medical personnel are at working with victims—greatly influences the victim’s healing process and the success of the criminal investigation.

ST: What impact does the rape kit examination have on a survivor?

KR: Every survivor I interviewed had a different experience. When the experience was positive—when the victim came in contact with a forensic examiner who was well-trained and understood how to conduct a forensic examination, treated the victim with respect, communicated to the victim what the exam entailed, told the victim the assault was not her fault—the healing process started in a very positive way.

When the exam was bad, it had such a detrimental impact on the victim. For example, if the examiner was insensitive or judgmental. It eroded their self-esteem, it eroded their confidence in the system and it affected their ability to heal fully. I learned quite a bit from their experiences, what was good, what was bad and why it is so important for the examination to be done carefully, respectfully and competently. Hearing the stories of these women was life-altering for me. It affects me to this day. I still think of them. I thought of them while we were planning this sexual assault kit evidence research project.

3. How did you learn about the backlog?

KR: I’m glad you asked the question in that way, Sarah, because it offers me a great opportunity to clarify something that we at NIJ are hoping to educate the public about: evidence that has not yet been sent to a crime lab is not truly a part of what most people consider to be “the backlog.” There is a backlog of evidence in crime labs, of course, and I have been aware of this since I was at the Office on Violence Against Women. But I didn’t truly understand the distinction between that “backlog” and untested sexual assault evidence kits that are still in police custody and have not actually been sent to a crime lab until I joined the National Institute of Justice.

When the discovery of thousands of untested kits in Los Angeles was revealed, my colleagues and I sat back and said, “Is there something we can do to help?”

We reached out directly to the crime lab directors at the Los Angeles Police and Sheriff’s Departments—Greg Matheson at the LAPD and Barry Fischer at the LASD. We told them NIJ had some additional resources and they were so open to accepting assistance. As a research organization, we considered how we could study the situation in L.A. and possibly identify some promising practices that could be adapted by other jurisdictions facing similar situations.

As soon as the discovery of these kits in Los Angeles became public, other jurisdictions began to come forward about their untested sexual assault kits and it became clear the problem was not just in Los Angeles, but that the problem was deeper and wider than anybody knew or expected.

ST: How did the NIJ sexual assault kit evidence action research project come into being?

KR: After helping out in Los Angeles, we decided to take a more national approach. We knew we would be able to identify some promising practices out of the L.A. project, but what works for L.A. might not work in other jurisdictions across the country. If we only look at L.A., it will not give us a full picture of all the promising practices that may be out there.

Our first thought was to select several jurisdictions and offer them technical assistance to deal with their untested kits.  But if we just focused on technical assistance, we won’t really understand why and how the issue of kits not sent for analysis came to be. When the money runs out, the problem may just build back up again and we may not have addressed the underlying issues.

We thought about how we could employ a research approach to get at those underlying issues. We decided to fund action-research projects in three-to-five jurisdictions around the country—asking practitioners and researchers to work together to identify the problem, identify strategies to address the problem, put those strategies in place, and measure the impact they are having.

Using the action research model, the researchers come in at the beginning and analyze the data and pinpoint where they see the problem. Once the problem has been identified, it is up to the practitioners to identify the strategies they want to use to move forward. The researchers are constantly measuring and monitoring the implementation of the strategy, and if a strategy doesn’t appear to be working, they can make mid-course corrections.  They can keep doing that until they find something that is making a difference. And I think that through this approach, we can get at some issues that we may never have known that are serving as causes of and barriers to solving the issue of kits not being sent to a lab for analysis.

ST: Why should a jurisdiction apply for this project?

KR: If a jurisdiction participates in this project: 1) there is a very good chance they will be able to test formerly unanalyzed kits; and 2) they will learn about and be able to put in place sustainable solutions. We want to help jurisdictions move from having unmanageable and overwhelming backlogs of evidence that is sent to a crime lab, those where you lose control of the process, to having a system that feels manageable for them.

We would like, ultimately, to produce protocols and practices to share with jurisdictions around the country that may also be experiencing large volumes of untested kits.  Practices that are based on evidence from research and data, and can help jurisdictions get a handle on the problem, so they are not overwhelmed by it, and can put systems in place to help them move forward.

ST: Five years from now, what do you hope this pilot project will have accomplished?

KR: The ultimate goal would be to reform our criminal justice system so that all sexual assault victims feel comfortable reporting their sexual assault because they know the system is going to work for them. They would know that if they went through an exam, the evidence would be tested in a timely manner and may yield results that would help bring an offender to justice. I would hope that no sexual assault victim would have to wait years for a kit to be tested and uploaded to CODIS. Through CODIS, we can match crime scenes to offenders, and match crime scenes to crime scenes and stop serial rapists from committing these crimes. I know that testing the kit is not going to be the answer to solving every case, but we can do more to solve sexual assault cases. Getting those kits tested in a timely way is one of those steps.

One question we hope to answer through this research project is whether it’s effective to test every kit. I know some jurisdictions are doing it, and right now we don’t have the evidence to show that this is the best practice.

Education and public awareness about sexual assault are essential to helping people understand this crime and why it’s so important to report it. Raising awareness, whether it’s through a foundation like Joyful Heart, whether it’s through the White House, whether it’s through federal grants, is vital.

It’s difficult for victims to come forward and report their sexual assault. It’s important that if we are going to encourage victims to come forward and have a forensic exam, we must have the processes in place to test those kits. From my experience interviewing survivors of sexual assault, I realized the impact of good care—medical and forensic—can have on the victim’s healing process and sense of justice.  Hopefully, the results of this research project will add to our knowledge of why sexual assault kit backlogs exist and help us figure out the best ways to address the problem.

To learn more about the NIJ research initiative, visit the project’s landing page here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/forensics/sexual-assault-kits.htm

President Barack Obama, joined by Vice President Joe Biden, speaks at a Violence Against Women awareness event in the East Room of the White House, Oct. 27 2010. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

On October 27^th, as part of a White House event to Commemorate Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Vice President Joe Biden announced that the federal government was increasing its efforts to end the rape kit backlog in the United States by funding pilot projects throughout the country to help jurisdictions eliminate their rape kit backlog.

It was an important moment, and I was lucky to get to be a part of it, sitting in the East Room of the White House as Vice President Biden made the announcement. Sitting three rows from the Vice President and President Barack Obama, who both made remarks, I was full of gratitude for an administration that is deeply committed to ending violence against women and girls.

Listening to the President and Vice President, I was filled with gratitude for how this administration is using its power to address sexual and domestic violence, and to shed light into the darkness of these issues. As Mariska Hargitay, Founder & President of the Joyful Heart Foundation, who was at the event, expressed to the press afterwards, “I know I speak for the many thousands of survivors, whose hope for healing I carry with me, when I tell you how grateful and encouraged I am to see the conversation about these issues elevated to this level. “

The rape kit pilot project announced last week is a response to the news over the past several years of the discovery of tens of thousands of untested rape kits in police storage facilities throughout the country. Recognizing the need to fix the problem, but also the reality that the causes and consequences of rape kit backlogs has not been comprehensively studied, the federal government decided to tackle the problem with pilot projects centered around a research component. The project will be run by the National Institute of Justice, which describes the project this way:

NIJ seeks to better understand why so many sexual assault kits are not forwarded from police evidence rooms to crime labs for DNA testing and to develop innovative approaches to solve the problem.

NIJ will award up to $200,000 to each of up to five sites to create an “action-research” partnership to explore the problem and come up with solutions. Each site—a state or local government with a minimum of 500 untested sexual assault kits that have not been sent to a crime lab—will form a team to include a criminal-justice researcher and representatives from the police department, crime lab, prosecutor’s office, and a community-based victim services organization. The teams will first audit their cases to determine why the sexual assault kits were not sent to the lab, then develop a plan to tackle the problem.

In phase 2 of the project, NIJ intends to award up to a total of $4 million to the sites to implement their plans.

This pilot project offers an unprecedented opportunity for jurisdictions to get full federal support to eliminate their rape kit backlog. It also promises to produce essential research to determine what works best when it comes to rape kit testing policies. We encourage all interested jurisdictions to apply.

Here is the link to the NIJ solicitation: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/forensics/sexual-assault-kits.htm.

This pilot project is a turning point in how the federal government deals with rape kit backlogs. It is of a piece with this administration’s work to address domestic and sexual violence. As Mariska noted, after the White House event, “Let us all move forward with the confidence that we will look back at this moment as a turning point in this movement, a moment fueled by our collective courage that shines brightly with the light of hope and the promise of healing.”

To watch the announcement, follow this link:

VP Biden on Rape Kit Backlog Elimination Pilot Program