Assembly Passes Bill to Track Sexual Assault Evidence Kits
AB 1848 will help reduce number of untested rape kits
San Francisco, CA—The Assembly today approved with bipartisan support a bill authored by Assemblymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco) and sponsored by Attorney General Kamala Harris that would help reduce the number of untested sexual assault evidence kits throughout California. AB 1848 will for first time require law enforcement agencies to report to the California Department of Justice annual data on sexual assault evidence kit collection and testing, providing greater transparency for survivors, policy makers and the criminal justice system.
“Survivors of sexual assault deserve to know what happened to the sexual assault evidence kits they submitted,” said Assemblymember Chiu. “To get at the heart of the backlog problem, we need to know how many kits are collected each year, and if they’re not analyzed, we need to know why. This data will help shed some light on improvements that law enforcement needs to make and whether or not they need more resources to get the kits tested.”