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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

Sexual assault changes a person’s view of self, especially their body, and a rape kit becomes an extended vestige of a survivor’s own body—at great personal cost.

The Joyful Heart Foundation pushes for more funding to labs and for state regulations requiring responsibility for testing kits; it fostered a massive push to get all rape kits tested, even those dating back to the 80’s.

The Me Too movement has touched almost every industry in the past year, and state legislatures have been under growing pressure to curb sexual assault and harassment in private workplaces and within their own chambers. But has the reckoning had an impact on the law?

Early signs point to yes.

California legislators this week set aside partisanship to move toward reducing the state’s backlog of untested rape kits, with both houses passing separate bills targeting the problem.

While California may have a reputation for progressive policies and a history of tough-on-crime laws, Los Angeles and L.A. County at one point had 12,000 untested rape kits, which law enforcement only caught up on in 2011.

In Minnesota's most ambitious effort to process untested rape kits, the Duluth Police Department has eliminated its entire backlog and submitted 415 kits for laboratory testing, a step that could open the door to justice for scores of sexual assault victims.

The kits, sitting in storage for as long as 25 years, were inventoried in 2015 after the Legislature ordered a one-time audit of all untested kits held by law enforcement agencies across the state. Departments reported more than 3,400 untested kits; Duluth had the most, with more than 550.

On May 25, the state Senate Appropriations Committee will decide whether to advance two bills that would demand the speedy testing of California’s large backlog of rape kits and the timely testing of all newly collected rape kits.

AB3118 requires the first-ever statewide inventory of untested rape kits in California. At present, state officials have no idea how many kits are sitting on shelves across the state.

Pressure is building for California lawmakers to end the backlog of untested rape kits, following the arrest this week of the suspected East Area Rapist.

Law enforcement officials said a major break leading to the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo was made possible, in large part, by DNA evidence tied to old crimes carried out by the suspected rapist and killer.