RALEIGH — On Nov. 2, the U.S. Senate reauthorized legislation that provides law enforcement agencies with federal funding to conduct DNA analyses of untested rape kits. The measure has been sent to the U.S. House for approval.
The legislation is the Debbie Smith Act, first passed in 2004 and named after a sexual assault survivor. In addition to providing funding to local law enforcement agencies, the Act also bolsters the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and legal assistance for dating violence survivors.
“North Carolina has thousands of untested rape kits, and victims of these heinous crimes deserve justice,” said U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) in a press release about the reauthorization vote. “Congress should do everything we can to put the perpetrators behind bars. I am proud the Debbie Smith Act passed the Senate and look forward to quick passage in the House to ensure our law enforcement agencies have the resources they need.”
Per the release by Tillis, “more than 860,000 DNA cases have been processed” since the measure became law.
In 2017, North Carolina’s rape kit backlog was the highest in the nation at over 15,000.
A law to combat that backlog was passed during the 2019-2020 legislative session. The Standing Up for Rape Victims Act of 2019 appropriated $6 million total in nonrecurring funds over the 2019-2021 fiscal biennium to the N.C. Department of Justice (NCDOJ) for testing of sexual assault kits in the backlog.
The NCDOJ also obtained a $2 million grant from the Governor’s Crime Commission to outsource testing of around 3,000 rape kits.
In 2018, Attorney General Josh Stein announced his office had received a $2 million Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) grant. At the time the grant was announced, Stein also unveiled a state-wide tracking system for the untested backlog of kits known as STIMS, which stands for the North Carolina Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit Tracking System and Information Management System.
Following passage of the 2019 Act, a mandatory inventory conducted revealed 16,219 untested kits.
According to the NCDOJ data dashboard that logs the status “in real time” of the backlog inventory, at the time of Tillis’ press statement, 10,950 kit tests have been completed, an almost 23% increase over the 8,928 the NCDOJ’s dashboard said were tested as of early March 2023.
Per the data dashboard, the current total number of kits submitted stands at 11,762, up very little from the 11,128 reported in March. Additionally, the dashboard currently says 11,775 kits require a DNA test, up from 11,128 in March, and to date, 89 arrests have been made due to CODIS hits from inventory kits.
Aside from the backlog inventory, the overall number of untested kits in the state is not available on the NCDOJ website or dashboard.
North State Journal reached out to Stein’s office for comment on the U.S. Senate’s reauthorization of the Debbie Smith Act but did not receive a response.
