by Mary Stroka
From 2018 to 2022, Michigan reduced by 95% the number of untested sexual assault evidence collection kits held by law enforcement,
USAFacts released last week a state-by-state analysis of rape kits backlogs. Researchers filed public records requests with each state, asking them to provide rape kit backlog data between 2018 and 2022. Thirty states and Washington D.C. provided data.
The total number of untested kits, across the responding states, exceeds 25,000, as of 2022, according to the report. The rest of the states have the requests pending, denied the requests or didn’t answer.
According to the Congressional Research Service, researchers and organizations’ estimates on the national backlog vary. They range from 90,000 as of January 2022 to 400,000 unsubmitted kits between 2014 and 2018.
The Justice Department has spent more than $1.3 billion since 2011 through its DNA Capacity Enhancement for Backlog Reduction in 2004 and the National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative in 2015 to help states clear their backlogs.
Michigan’s backlog with law enforcement dropped from 637 in 2018 to 30 in 2022, the report said. The backlog in the Great Lake State’s crime labs dropped 63% over those years, from 690 to 254. Michigan was among several states that announced they had completed backlog testing before providing data.
“However, this doesn’t guarantee that [these states] don’t still have untested kits in crime labs and law enforcement agencies,” the report said. “When these states report clearing their backlogs, they are typically referring to kits that have awaited testing for decades. This does not include recently collected kits awaiting testing at law enforcement agencies and crime labs.”
For example, Oregon State Police said it eliminated its backlog in 2018., according to the report. However, USAFacts found that the state had 790 untested rape kits in the state lab in 2022.
Michigan announced in 2018 that it had cleared backlogs, the report said. The state had 320 untested kits at crime labs in 2019 and 72 in 2020. In 2021, that number rose to 272. In 2022, it was 254. In 2022, Michigan and several other states tested no more than 5% of kits within a month. Michigan tested within 30 days 3%, or 56 of the 2,176 kits that the state received in 2022.
The data from Michigan crime labs solely includes kits law enforcement submitted to the crime lab that had completed testing, the report said.
Maryland (3,599) and Massachusetts (2,319) had the most kits held by law enforcement at the end of 2022, while North Carolina (9,045), Massachusetts (2,206), Texas (1,451) and Washington (1,191) had the most kits held in crime labs in 2022, the report said. North Carolina had nearly 37 times the number of kits in 2022 than it did in 2018. Connecticut is the only state to have zero rape kits held either by law enforcement or in crime labs.
Michigan State Police Public Affairs Director Shannon Banner didn’t respond by press time to The Center Square’s request for comment and additional context.
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Mary Stroka is a contributor to The Center Square.
