As the state legislative sessions are ending or paused for a summer break, we look back at our achievements this year. 29 states and Puerto Rico introduced 50 bills related to our six pillars of comprehensive sexual assault kit reform. Out of these, 12 states passed 15 laws. This year, Mississippi enacted its first ever rape kit reform bill, leaving Maine as the only state without any rape kit reform.
Rep. Chip Brown in Alabama sponsored HB21, which requires an annual inventory of untested rape kits. The inventory will allow us to uncover the extent of the problem in Alabama, and help the stakeholders in the field in creating a roadmap to end the backlog. Rep. Brown had sponsored HB137 in 2021, which granted the state its victim’s right to know pillar – its first ever. With these two bills, Alabama is making progress on comprehensive rape kit reform.
In Colorado, Rep. Meg Froelich sponsored a rape kit tracking bill, HB23-1199. The bill was signed into law on May 25, 2023, making the state a full reform state! With this last pillar, survivors in Colorado will be able to track their rape kits from collection at medical facilities into testing and storage at the state crime lab. We applaud Rep. Froelich for leading HB23-1199 this year and HB1143 in 2021, which granted the state its victim’s right to know pillar.
Legislators in Georgia allocated $94,250 towards maintaining the statewide tracking system. HB255, passed in 2021, created the system, but did not allocate state funding. With the passage of HB638, Georgia legislators committed to implementing the system and sent a message to survivors that their need for information matters.
Sen. Beth Mizell in Louisiana introduced SB169, which was enacted on June 8th and created a rape kit tracking system. The state had its first and only pillar, an annual inventory, back in 2015. This new law shows a renewed commitment by elected officials to increasing transparency around the kit handling process. Survivors in Louisiana will be able to track their kits on this statewide system by July 2024.
We are grateful to our champions in Mississippi, Rep. Angela Cockerham, Rep. Jill Ford, and Rep. Dana McLean for carrying the state from a no-reform to two-pillar status. Together with other local stakeholders, they lead the efforts on HB485. The passed bill requires kit handling timelines for hospitals, law enforcement, and forensic labs, and grants victims the right to know the status of their kits. Finally in Mississippi, survivors won’t be left in the dark about their rape kits, and the kits will be tested swiftly.
Although most legislative sessions ended for the year, we still support bills in:
- California: Sen. Aisha Wahab’s SB464 requires a new inventory of untested rape kits. In 2018, AB3118 required an inventory of untested rape kits. However, only 149 LEAs and crime labs out of 708 submitted data. To uncover the true extent of the backlog, we sent public records requests to the largest 21 jurisdictions in California. According to our efforts, we learned that in these jurisdictions, 19,946 kits were collected from the late 1980s to 2022, 11,543 of which were submitted to the crime lab for testing, 106 kits were unreported, 1,714 kits were destroyed, and 4,376 kits were not tested for various reasons. Read more about our work in California here. We support Sen. Wahab’s bill to require all agencies in the state that handle rape kits to report their data on untested rape kits.
- Ohio: Along with our friends at RAINN, we have successfully added inventory and victims’ rights pillar language into the state budget, HB33. This bill was signed into law on July 4. We also support HB169, which eliminates the spousal exception from sexual assault crimes, ensuring that regardless of whether the accused and the survivor are married or not, rape is rape.
- New York: We supported the Fair Access to Victim Compensation Act in New York, S214A / A2105. Our friends at Common Justice and Safe Horizon lead the effort. We joined their advocacy day in Albany, and provided letters of support. The bill is currently on Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk.
- Wisconsin: Legislators introduced two bills to ensure swift testing of rape kits at the lab: AB36 and AB41. We supported both bills, which would ensure rape kits are tested swiftly, and dangerous offenders are taken off the street.
Many thanks to our fearless supporters for making these advocacy gains possible across the country through persistent calls and emails to their legislators. Without our community of dedicated individuals, we would not have accomplished any of these. We are looking forward to the next legislative session and improving rape kit and victims’ rights laws in every state!