Statewide Iowa — The Iowa Attorney General’s Office says a six-year effort to clear a backlog of untested sexual assault evidence kits throughout the state has wrapped up.
Iowa Public Safety Commissioner Stephen Bayens worked with the AG on the project.
There were more than 42-hundred unsubmitted sexual assault kits across the state, and the project used three million dollars in federal grant money to test 16-hundred-six kits.
Bayens says they were able to create a tracking system so victims know where their evidence is and also improved the speed of the system to allow them to process more kits.
This year they have already tested 734. The grant protocol excluded many kits from testing for several reasons, including the lack of police reports or victim information, or being too recent. Only kits collected before April 28, 2015, could be tested under the grant. Bayens says the process is now keeping new kits from sitting in evidence rooms.
Attorney General Tom Miller says with the backlog of kits cleared up he doesn’t believe it will become a problem again.
Miller says many of these sexual assault incidents took place 10 or more years ago and in most cases, victims opted not to re-engage with law enforcement. They have thus far filed criminal charges in four cases related to the backlog kits with two convictions.
Picture above shows Iowa Public Safety Commissioner Stephen Bayens
