Website to record status of sex assault kit testing

The state launched a website Friday to help survivors of sexual assault learn the status of forensic evidence kits collected after their attacks, which may have gone untested for years.

State Attorney General Doug Chin and the Hawaii Sexual Assault Kit Initiative team held a news conference to announce the website designed to support survivors as authorities work to test hundreds of backlogged kits for DNA evidence.

“The Hawaii SAKI website is an important first step to help survivors understand what happened to their sexual assault kit and the process now being used to test those kits,” said state Rep. Linda Ichiyama (D, Salt Lake-Moanalua Valley). “As the Women’s Legislative Caucus continues to work on this issue, I hope that survivors will visit the website and use the information to learn the status of their sexual assault kit.”

Sexual assault evidence kits, also known as “rape kits,” collect and preserve potential DNA evidence such as swabs of bodily fluid and hair samples.

A 2016 law, Act 207, called for a creation of a statewide team to reform the testing of sexual assault kits in Hawaii because many had languished for years. County police departments had tested just 13 percent of the 2,240 kits collected statewide from the 1990s to 2016, leaving 1,951 untested, according to an inventory submitted to the Legislature in December.

The team includes the Department of the Attorney General, county prosecutors, police departments and service providers who help survivors of sexual assault. They created Project Malama Kakou, which means “We Care,” an effort to reach out to survivors, set priorities and criteria for testing kits, and establish a tracking system.

“Out of 1,951 we were able to identify 1,386 kits that we are going to definitely be testing,” Chin said. “The ones that would be at the lowest priority, those were the ones where the survivor chose not to proceed with the case or the offender is already in the federal database.”

So far, 542 kits have been submitted for testing, and the project is on track to meet its goals, he said.

“The reason we don’t just send them all at once is this initiative is happening around the country, so it actually is a question of capacity for the labs,” Chin said.

When a test results in “a new actionable development” in a case, the survivor will be contacted. Such developments could include evidence that matches another criminal case or links to a suspect in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System.

“We don’t want to re-traumatize or bring up again a past experience if it’s not something we’re actively pursuing,” Chin said. “But what we do want to do is give people the opportunity, if they have questions about the status of the kit, to be able to contact law enforcement.”

Sexual assault survivors can use the website to start the process of finding out the status of their kits and to seek out providers of support services. They can also call their local police department at the numbers on the website.

Traditionally, sexual assault evidence kits were used to identify suspects or confirm identities in individual cases. If the suspect confessed, or other solid evidence was collected from the crime scene, the kit might not be tested. Kits also were not tested in cases where survivors declined to pursue a criminal case.

More kits are being tested these days on the theory that the DNA evidence could be useful in other cases, such as suspects in multiple attacks. The movement also reflects changing attitudes toward sexual assault, better DNA testing technology, more laboratory capacity and greater funding.

Dani Riggs, clinical director of Child & Family Service’s Maui Sexual Assault Center, sees the Malama Kakou website as a key way to reach out to sexual assault survivors across the state.

“We know that information heals and want to provide easy access to the most accurate and updated information possible,” he said. “We want to make sure that anyone impacted by the work of our project team gets the best care and most compassionate treatment possible.”