2014 FOIA Request
FOIA Documents
Jurisdiction Type
City
Response
Untested Kits Discovered
835
Why did we send the FOIA?
In 2014, the Joyful Heart Foundation launched The Accountability Project to uncover the extent of the backlog across the country. In 2015, Joyful Heart and our pro bono attorneys sent public records requests to twenty-six of the country’s most populous cities for which we did not have any or had very little information about their untested rape kits.
What did we discover?
Through our efforts, we learned that, as of March 2015, Albuquerque Police Department (APD) reported 835 untested rape kits in storage. This number was verified by a KOAT news investigation, which reported that APD had collected 1,182 rape kits between 2007 and 2015, but only submitted 347 for testing, leaving 835 untested kits.
Why Accountability?
Right now, we do not know the full extent of the national rape kit backlog because few states require law enforcement agencies to count, track, or test rape kits. The Accountability Project aims to bring greater transparency and accountability to rape kit testing practices across the country.