Today, Georgia became the 31st state to enact a rape kit tracking law, bringing transparency to the rape kit handling process and giving survivors important information.Due in great part by the bill’s champion, Representative Scott Holcomb, HB255 has been signed into law.
A sexual assault survivor should not have to wait 10 years for their rape kit to be tested, but that happened in a Fulton County, Georgia, case. While this kit sat on the shelf, the perpetrator sexually assaulted more people and committed other crimes. From December 2001 to May 2005, Dandre Shabazz targeted young women—between […]
Today’s guest author is Representative Scott Holcomb, the champion of Georgia’s landmark 2016 rape kit reform bill. Here, Rep. Holcomb shares how rape kit reform came to pass in Georgia. For several years, I was aware of the rape kit backlog issue across the country. In 2015, I began questioning if it was an issue […]
The Joyful Heart Foundation, a leader in the effort to provide cities and states with the resources they need to address their backlog of rape kits, today applauded the passage of SB304, which takes meaningful steps to address the backlog of untested rape kits in the state. DNA evidence is an invaluable investigative tool.
