Joyful Heart in the News

Parade profiled Joyful Heart founder Mariska Hargitay.

The News Tribune calls on the Missouri Highway Patrol to redouble its efforts to address the problem of a growing number of untested rape kits at the patrol's crime lab.

The Kansas City Star reported the number of untested rape kits with the patrol's crime lab has more than doubled since last August, when a new law requiring police to submit kits within 14 days took effect.

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) - When Ilse Knecht thinks about thousands of untested sexual assault kits, she imagines thousands of people sitting on shelves.

“Each one of these boxes represents a survivor who went through that experience, did everything society asked them to do - report the crime to police, have evidence collected and participate in the criminal justice process - and we fail them,” Knecht said.

Taiwana lived in Flint, Michigan, in 1996, in a home her grandparents had passed down through her family. She was in that home with six of her seven children when her rapist attacked.

Although she reported her attacker and got a rape kit, her case was not pursued for over two decades. Tens of thousands of people have had an experience like Taiwana’s. The Joyful Heart Foundation (JHF) is leading a national effort to end this pattern.

Massachusetts is moving forward with an $8 million investment to test all rape kits in police custody following the passage of last year’s criminal justice bill, which included significant measures in rape kit reform.

The passage of the state’s budget bill means that Massachusetts has now enacted all six pillars of reform recommended by the Joyful Heart Foundation.

North Carolina has the highest number of untested rape kits of any state, but a recent call from N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein for funding to test the kits might change that. 

“What we have found through communities that have taken a lot of the old untested kits off the shelves and tested them is that serial offenders have been left free to remain on the streets and commit crimes over and over again,” said Ilse Knecht, director of policy and advocacy for The Joyful Heart Foundation

The Washington attorney general said Tuesday he will notify every law enforcement agency in his state and direct them to ensure that rape kits are not being inappropriately destroyed. His action comes in response to a CNN investigation into the destruction of rape kits nationwide and on the heels of a Missouri police chief's apology to victims.

Sarah Parsons is ready to move forward, to endure a criminal case against the man she said sexually assaulted her, to begin closing a difficult chapter.

But she is waiting on one thing. The evidence collected last year in the emergency room of a Chicago hospital, known as a rape kit, hasn’t yet been analyzed. An attorney advised waiting; the results would likely bolster the case.

Domestic violence can take the form of physical, psychological, or economic abuse, and it is a national issue that affects people of all ages and genders, though the majority of victims are women. Survivors do not report abuse for many reasons, including fear of gaslighting. Despite years of progress, domestic violence remains a silent epidemic.