A sexual assault kit. (Photo from Alaska Department of Public Safety)
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has introduced legislation to set a statewide tracking system in place for sexual assault kits, and ensure victims can privately track their kit through the process from collection to forensic testing.
“Survivors of sexual assault deserve a system that prioritizes their well-being and delivers justice,” Dunleavy said, in a prepared statement released with the bill’s announcement. “This bill reflects our commitment to creating a trauma-informed, survivor-centered process.”
The legislation, House Bill 62, would expedite timelines for processing sexual assault kits, which is a collection of physical evidence after a sexual assault that can be used for prosecution in court.
If passed, the bill would require health care providers who collect the sexual assault kits to notify law enforcement that the kit is ready for forensic testing within 14 days. The appropriate law enforcement agency would then have to submit the kit to a forensic lab for testing also within 14 days, down from 30 days in current law. The lab would be required to test the kit within 120 days, down from 180 days.
It also requires the sexual assault kit tracking system to allow survivors to log on through an online portal and privately track the status of their own kit, and when it has been tested.
James Cockrell, commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that the state has made significant progress in addressing a backlog of untested kits. He addressed the committee during its first hearing of the bill.
In 2017, a statewide survey found almost 3,500 untested kits across the state, many held by local police departments.
“If you go back 10 years ago, where we were, we were in the dark ages when we were processing sexual assault kits,” Cockrell said. “We’ve certainly cleared up the huge backlog.”
There is a tracking system now, created through grant funding, and the new legislation would require the state to maintain the system, at a cost to the state of roughly $200,000 per year.
“Currently, I think we have 14,000 sexual assault kits in our crime lab,” he said. “We retain all sexual assault kits, regardless of jurisdiction, wherever the examinations are taking place.”
The tracking system is already in place, and this bill would cement the timelines for each stage of processing, Cockrell said, “because it is such a devastating crime, and it’s important that law enforcement takes it at that level and holds people accountable.”
A similar bill failed in the Legislature last year, after health care providers raised concern over a proposed seven-day period to process kits. Currently there is no timeline. This bill would allow for 14 days instead, which Cockrell said was arrived at after discussions with providers.
Transparency for survivors in tracking their own kit, and the choice of whether or not to log on to check its status was a major priority in the creation of the system, said David Kanaris, chief of the scientific crime detection laboratory in the Department of Public Safety.
“Doing this previously had to be done through them contacting a law enforcement agency,” he said of kit tracking. “Which can be a traumatic experience in itself for the victim-survivor, and so allowing them to do it at their own pace through the kit tracking system was huge for us.”
Kanaris said since the tracking system launched in June 2023, over half of the kits in the system have had a login by a survivor or advocate on their behalf. All the data is private and confidential via a barcode system, he added, aside from potentially being introduced as evidence in court.
During the presentation to the committee, Kanaris shared photos of the large store room at the lab in Anchorage, where the estimated 14,000 sexual assault kits are now stored permanently. If DNA is detected in a kit, he said it’s also stored in the Combined DNA Index System, a national DNA database that stores and compares DNA profiles, managed by the FBI.
Alaska has the highest rate of sexual assault in the U.S. — four times higher than the national rate.
The Department of Public Safety reported that in 2020, the most current Alaska data, the rate of rape reported to the department was 154.8 per 100,000 Alaskans, compared to 38.4 per 100,000 in the U.S.
Only about one third of sexual assaults nationally are reported to law enforcement, according to an analysis by RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. That’s due to a wide range of reasons, including fear of retaliation or beliefs the police would not or could not do anything to help.
Kanaris said currently half of all cases processed at his forensic lab — including homicide, property crimes, and others — are related to sexual assault, or about 600 out of 1,200 cases last year. It takes roughly 133 days to process those cases, he added.
“Each one of those (sexual assault kits) pertains to a victim’s worst day,” Kanaris said. “And it was quite eye opening for me as I moved to Alaska and had no idea of the magnitude of the problems. … And we’re very proud of the work that we’ve done so far, and we would like to see that continue.”
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