Washington Archives

Today, Washington will become the latest state in the country to enact comprehensive rape kit reform. The Joyful Heart Foundation, a national organization working to end the backlog of untested kits nationwide, will attend Governor Jay Inslee’s signing ceremony for H.B. 1166, which mandates that the Washington State Patrol test sexual assault kits within 45 days and requires that law enforcement submit kits collected before July 2015 for testing.

The Joyful Heart Foundation, a leader in the effort to provide cities and states with the resources they need to address their backlog of untested rape kits, today applauded the passage of HB 2530, which takes meaningful steps to bring accountability to the process of rape kit testing in Washington State. After weeks of delay, the state legislature has now provided the needed funding to implement the bill.