2020 FOIA Request
Why did we send the FOIA?
In 2020, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra released a report, announcing at least 13,929 untested kits in the state. Pursuant to AB 3118, the Department of Justice is mandated to collect information from all law enforcement agencies (LEAs), “medical facilities, crime laboratories, and any other facility that maintains, stores, or preserves sexual assault kits.” However, only 149 LEAs and crime labs out of 708 submitted data, and we still do not know the extent of the backlog in California. To shed light on the true extent of the backlog in California, through The Accountability Project, Joyful Heart has issued public records requests to police departments in the 21 largest cities in California that have not participated in the inventory.
What did we discover?
The Fremont Police Department provided data from 2000-2020. According to official data, 319 kits were collected, of which 104 were analyzed, 215 were untested, and 125 were destroyed. Untested kits include unreported kits, as well as kits where the crime occurred in another jurisdiction, and the offender was known to the victim. The ratio of tested to untested kits increased (and almost swapped) in 2018, possibly due to the 2018 law (AB3118). Up until 2014, they had been destroying kits; in 2015, they stopped.
More Accountability Targets in California
Bakersfield, CAConcord, CACorona, CAFresno, CAFullerton, CAGarden Grove, CAGlendale, CAHayward, CALong Beach, CAOrange, CAOxnard, CAPasadena, CAPomona, CARedding, CASacramento, CASalinas, CASan Bernardino, CASan Diego, CASan Jose, CASanta Barbara, CASanta Cruz, CASanta Monica, CASanta Rosa, CAShasta County, CASimi Valley, CAStockton, CATorrance, CAVallejo, CAVisalia, CA
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.