NORTH CAROLINA, USA — The North Carolina Attorney General's office announced Tuesday morning that North Carolina is ending the backlog of untested older sexual assault kits.
"I am incredibly proud of the bipartisan and collaborative effort that produced this achievement," Attorney General, Josh Stein said, "I thank the victims for their bravery in submitting the evidence so we can hold their rapists accountable."
The backlog was first identified back in 2017. At the time, the state realized over 16,000 rape kits, some decades old, hadn't been tested.
The state Department of Justice has since been working to deplete this backlog, it has done so through a number of ways.
Over the years, a second DNA lab was opened in the western part of the state, the time for new test kits to be processed was cut from seven to four months, legislation was put in place establishing the process to test older kits, significant funding was provided, law enforcement standards were created to ensure testing in a timely manner, and a tracking system was put in place.
Since 2017 the backlog has gotten shorter, and state law enforcement agencies have been getting leads.
"Certainly, you want to review those leads and that information and then take that back to the survivor of the sexual assault, present that information to them, and allow them the choice to move forward with that case, however, works best for them because we wanna make sure we're moving forward in a victim centered way always and justice looks different for different people," explained Sgt. Jennifer Dobey with the Winston-Salem Police Department.
Capt. Mike Burns with the Davidson County Sheriff's Office has been working in law enforcement for nearly 30 years. He said much of the backlog cases were five, ten, fifteen, even twenty years old.
"We were pretty excited to get the information back that we had a suspect developed, but unfortunately, when we reached out to these victims to initiate an investigation, a lot of these victims didn't want to prosecute. They didn't want to pursue it based on the fact that it's been such a long period of time that has gone by, and they just wanted to move on with her life," recalled Capt. Burns.
Capt. Burns said nowadays rape kits are processed faster than they were a few years ago. However, an analysis could take six to 18 months, there's no way to know exactly how long it may take to process the data.
According to the state, people reporting a sexual assault can do it in a number of ways. Survivors can call 911, reach out to local law enforcement, or visit a medical center.
People can also call the National Sexual Assault Hotline 800.656.HOPE (4673).
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