Survivors, prosecutors show support for rape kits at Senate committee hearing

There was a strong show of support on Monday as a state Senate committee heard from survivors, law enforcement, and others pushing a bill to clear the state’s massive rape kit backlog.

HB 1166 has already cleared the House.

Monday was the first time members of the Senate took up the bill, which among other things, requires 10,000 old kits be tested and creates a new high-tech lab to dramatically cut testing time down from over a year to just 45 days. The goals is for all the kits to be tested by the end of 2021.

The bill also includes a Survivors Bill of Rights which would ensure rape survivors can have a rape kit done at no cost.

Rape survivor Nicole Stevens told lawmakers there is no more time to wait.

“We absolutely need this,” Stevens said. “Every piece if this is absolutely required in order to heal the 10,000 wrongs that the state has done.”

She also pointed out the fact that the kits have not been tested has led many rape survivors to refrain from reporting their attacks, leaving them without justice and more rapists out on the street.

Prosecutors and representatives from state Attorney General’s governor’s offices also came out to support the bill. Sonja Hallum, the governor’s senior policy adviser on public safety, stressed the impact of Washington’s kits still sitting untested.

“In other jurisdictions that have had significant backlogs, such as Detroit, where they tested 10,000 kits that had been found in a warehouse — of those, over 800 had committed more than one rape and of those more than 50 had been connected to more than 10 sexual assaults, ” Hallum said, explaining of those 2,500 led to DNA hits — or matched an offender.

She pointed out that some of the kits that have been tested in Washington state have already led to repeat offenders.

“We believe that if we can get these kits tested not only can we do what we are responsible to do in testing the current kits, but we also potentially prevent future crimes from happening,” Hallum said.

The bill is scheduled for a possible committee vote Thursday.

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