2014 FOIA Request
FOIA Documents
Pending
Jurisdiction Type
City
Response
Untested Kits Discovered
1931
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?
In 2014 JHF issued a FOIA request to Portland. In May 2015, Portland announced that they have a backlog of 1,931 untested kits. Over the last 30 years, only 39 percent of rape kits collected by Portland police were ever submitted to a lab. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office awarded the City of Portland $1,189,790 and the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office $1,995,453 in funding to test kits, investigate and prosecute cases, and re-engage survivors. In 2016, the BJA awarded the City of Portland an additional $1,000,000 to sustain this work.
More Accountability Targets in Oregon
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.