By DANA DiFILIPPO
Republished with permission from New Jersey Monitor
Sexual assault victims in New Jersey should be able to track their rape kits through the criminal justice system by late summer under a new law Gov. Phil Murphy signed Thursday that’s meant to reduce a backlog of untested evidence and provide more transparency to victims.
The measure, which passed unanimously in both the Senate and Assembly, requires the state attorney general to create an online system where victims, law enforcement, and health care and laboratory workers can track the kits through the chain of custody, from collection to results. The kits contain biological evidence like semen, saliva, and hair taken from assault victims that help investigators identify assailants.
“Survivors of sexual assault who show strength and resilience in coming forward deserve recognition and support,” Murphy said in a statement.
Most other states already have such tracking systems in place.
The new law here gives the Attorney General’s Office until Aug. 1 to get the system up and running. They’ve already been working on it for a year, after getting $2 million in federal funding in 2023 to establish a tracking system.
The size of New Jersey’s rape kit backlog is unclear, although the problem appears to lie with law enforcement agencies rather than state forensic laboratories.
The state auditor found in a 2019 report that labs had no backlog while law enforcement agencies had over 2,800 kits in their possession that they hadn’t submitted for testing for various reasons, including investigators who had no suspects, believed the sexual act was consensual, or discounted victims who had a history of mental illness or had filed a complaint against their spouse or partner. In a separate report, a nonprofit found New Jersey law enforcement agencies had more than 1,200 untested rape kits between 2018 and 2020.
In March 2023, Attorney General Matt Platkin ordered a series of changes intended to limit New Jersey law enforcement’s ability to leave rape kits untested. He quadrupled the time agencies must store untested rape kits (from five to 20 years) and limited the circumstances under which agencies can opt not to have evidence tested.
The new law Murphy signed Thursday is a “critical step forward” in ensuring justice and restoring trust in the criminal justice system, said bill sponsor Sen. Renee Burgess, D-Essex.
“By establishing a rape kit tracking system, we are providing survivors with the transparency they deserve and holding the system accountable for its role in securing justice,” Burgess said in a statement.
