2014 FOIA Request
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?
Birmingham Police Department stated that they submit all kits to the lab for testing, and that, as of February 2015, there was a backlog of 442 kits from Birmingham awaiting testing at the state lab.
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.