‘Great results’ from Georgia’s new sex assault kit tracking system

ATLANTA – Tuesday marks two months since Georgia launched a brand new on-line monitoring system for sexual assault proof kits.

State legislators handed The Sexual Assault Reform Act of 2021 in March of final yr. The legislation required the Felony Justice Coordinating Council to arrange the monitoring system in order that victims, advocates, and legislation enforcement can log in and examine the standing of proof in intercourse assault circumstances.

“We have seen some nice outcomes thus far,” defined Amy Hutsell, program director for the CJCC’s Sexual Assault, Youngster Abuse and Human Trafficking Unit. “Our greatest influence, I believe is that we have now despatched a very sturdy message to victims and survivors on this state that we care about them.”

The net portal formally launched on June 30. Now, each sexual assault proof equipment within the state comes with a monitoring quantity and victims are assigned a PIN in order that they will log into the web site.

“The sexual assault equipment monitoring system actually builds on the work that the state has executed in a bipartisan method since 2016,” stated state Rep. Scott Holcomb, D-Atlanta, the primary sponsor of the laws. “What was critically vital was to make the method as clear as doable for victims. For all too lengthy it wasn’t. In reality, they had been actually left behind. You had kits simply sitting on cabinets with out being examined.”

Again in 2016, state lawmakers permitted one other invoice by Rep. Holcomb to require legislation enforcement to show over any beforehand untested rape kits after the invention that hundreds had by no means been taken to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for evaluation.

That legislation additionally required officers to choose up proof kits from hospitals or different suppliers inside 3 days and submit them to the GBI for testing inside 30 days.

State officers introduced in November 2018 that the greater than 3,500 “warehoused” kits had been processed.

Rep. Holcomb stated the brand new monitoring system is designed to stop proof from languishing sooner or later.

“The purpose was actually twofold. We wished one, to extend transparency after which two, we wished a system the place we may truly observe what was occurring to verify there’s by no means a backlog once more and to verify the proof is examined in a well timed method,” Rep. Holcomb defined.

The brand new legislation additionally requires the CJCC to draft a report for the governor and state lawmakers by December 31 every year detailing the variety of sexual assault kits used, the common time it takes legislation enforcement businesses to choose them up from healthcare suppliers and what number of the GBI lab has processed.

“It is a terrific first begin to have the accountability within the system and for victims to imagine it is truly price reporting,” stated Marina Sampanes Peed, government director and CEO of Mosaic Georgia.

Mosaic is a sexual assault heart and kids’s advocacy heart in Gwinnett County that gives forensic medical exams for sufferers who’ve been assaulted. Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners, or SANEs, gather hair, DNA and different proof to then flip over to the crime lab for testing.

Peed’s group was one in all six throughout the state to participate in a pilot program starting in October 2021 to check the state’s proof monitoring portal. She stated thus far, they’ve about 180 within the system.

“We are able to observe each equipment and the place it’s. If it is nonetheless with the legislation enforcement, if it has been despatched to the GBI, if the GBI has executed the evaluation,” stated Peed. “So, it would not give the outcomes of any of it, but it surely actually helps to see the place that’s going and that is so vital as a result of if somebody has the braveness to really disclose what occurred, and normally it is by any person they know, then to have the system begin to help that’s large.”

The brand new web site additionally consists of details about sources for survivors of sexual assault. You’ll be able to be taught extra at svrga.org.