On July 24, 2015, important state legislation (House Bill 1068) went into effect that encourages the DNA testing of every sexual assault evidence kit in Washington. This includes kits that were previously collected prior to July 24th, 2015, but not yet tested. Moving forward, law enforcement agencies must now request within 30 days of its receipt that a kit be tested, if the survivor consents to its testing. Additionally, state legislation enacted in 2019 (House Bill 1166) instituted important time frames regarding the DNA testing of sexual assault evidence kits (SAKs), forming two strategic testing initiatives for the WSP:
Initiative #1: The Washington State Patrol will facilitate the testing of each sexual assault evidence kit that was previously unsubmitted to the crime laboratory by December 1, 2021.
With the help of the Washington State Attorney General’s Office and local law enforcement agencies across the state, it was approximated that as of 2015, over 9,000 sexual assault evidence kits were eligible for testing, but had not been submitted previously to a forensic laboratory. Additionally, the AG’s Office received a $3 million Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) grant in 2017 to help initiate multi-disciplinary reform in testing these previously unsubmitted kits. For more information on the SAKI project led by the Attorney General’s office, please visit their project page*.
*=Please note that the metrics reported on this site relate to any kit collected, and not yet tested, prior to April 1, 2017, and pertain to the SAKI project. These metrics may differ from the ones reported on other sites, as WSP reports on the progress of testing for all sexual assault evidence kits, and has distinguished them into two overall categories: previously unsubmitted kits collected prior to July 24, 2015 (the date the law went into effect), and those kits collected after July 24, 2015.
Included in the SAKI inventory of unsubmitted kits, it was estimated that 9,232 kits were previously unsubmitted to the crime laboratory for DNA testing that were collected prior to July 24, 2015, when the law took effect. The Washington State Patrol (WSP) is committed to facilitating the testing of these kits by December 1, 2021.
The following data pertains to SAKs collected before July 24, 2015.
Initiative #2: The Washington State Patrol will ensure that a sexual assault kit will be processed for DNA within 45 days of its receipt into the laboratory by May 30, 2022.
Timely forensic DNA results positively impact the criminal justice system, helping to identify perpetrators, exonerate the innocent, and provide valuable information to those affected by crime. Sexual assault is a serious offense, and the Washington State Patrol is committed to increasing testing capacity to ensure timely DNA results by May 2022.
The following data pertains to SAKs collected after July 24, 2015.
Monthly Data for November 2024:
Requests cancelled this month: 0