The Joyful Heart Foundation (Joyful Heart) today applauded Governor J. B. Pritzker’s signing of S.B. 1411, which will create a statewide rape kit tracking system. Illinois was the first state in the country to address their backlog of untested kits in 2010, and today’s action brings the state into compliance with all six pillars of rape kit reform recommended by Joyful Heart and leaders in this field.
The Joyful Heart Foundation today applauded the Illinois state legislature’s passage of House Bill 528, which creates a Sexual Assault Evidence Tracking and Reporting Commission to develop a plan for a statewide sexual assault kit tracking system. The bill is expected to be signed by Governor Bruce Rauner in the coming days.
A corrections officer in Illinois has been charged with sexually assaulting a 10-year-old child in 1997 after a rape kit that was part of a backlog in Harvey, Illinois was finally tested. The case is another powerful and deeply troubling example that every untested rape kit represents the failure to bring justice to a survivor […]
Polly Poskin, Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, took some time to speak with me about her work to end sexual violence in Illinois, the progress on there on the rape kit backlog and the culture of violence against women. Her words were incredibly informed and powerful and this transcript hardly seems […]
