By Erica Irish
TheStatehouseFile.com

 INDIANAPOLIS —Law enforcement, hospitals, and victim advocacy organizations will work this summer to create a stronger, more transparent system to track Indiana’s rape kits.

Rape kits are containers that hold DNA specimens, like fingernail scrapings and body swabs, and other evidence like clothing collected from the body of a victim during a sexual assault medical exam.

In December, a statewide audit of police labs sponsored by Sen. Michael Crider, R-Greenfield, found that 2,500 viable rape kits were never tested. More kits were never reported by law enforcement, or by victims to authorities.

That’s why lawmakers approved Senate Enrolled Act 264 during the 2018 legislative session. It calls for a study committee to recommend a better method of tracking the kits and paths to justice.

Maj. Steve Holland, director of the Indiana State Police Laboratory Division, said SEA 264 won’t add much additional work for lab employees.

Labs already use an internal tracking system with an online program called the Lab Inventory Management System, or LIMS, Holland said. The tracking system that could result from SEA 264 will be an external program that the public can access, he added. Lab workers would only need to apply and enter an additional barcode or tracking number.

“An internal system is not at all enough because it’s internal. It’s apples to oranges,” Holland said.

For victims, an external system would provide them with a unique tracking number for their case kit, allowing them to monitor the situation at any time. At the moment, victims only learn about the progress of their kit in conversations with law enforcement during the investigation process, Holland said.

Ideally, Crider said the group responsible for implementing a tracking system would provide each victim with a specific tracking number. If the victim wants to know where their kit is at in the process, this number would empower them to ask questions.

Representatives with the Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault (ICESA) also worked with Crider on SEA 264.

While they look forward to implementing a tracking system, Kristen Pulice, the organization’s chief operating officer, said the law is only a first step in creating a victims-first system.

Anonymous victims have one year to move forward with prosecution and testing. If the case isn’t or can’t be prosecuted, the kit is never tested and destroyed at the one-year deadline, Pulice said.

The majority of cases aren’t prosecuted, Pulice added. In some cases, perpetrators will take plea deals to one crime, which can exclude other victims; in others, she said, the victims don’t feel comfortable moving forward, often due to the shame and stigma of sexual assault.

Pulice said the tracking system will help anonymous victims the most, whose kits are placed in storage.

“Moving forward, we need to look at testing all non-anonymous kits,” Pulice said. “We also need to change our rape definition to include ‘without consent.’”

Pulice pointed to reforms in Lake County labs as ones the state should emulate.

Last month, Lake County prosecutors took an inventory of untested, anonymous rape kits in storage, according to new county-level changes.

After testing one of the kits, the department solved 2014 gang-rape and charged three men — Joshua Shipp, David Werner, and Ajahn Batty — with two counts of rape each.

In general, Holland and Crider agreed the results of the 2017 audit is generating more conversation about sexual assault crimes around the state.

Each noted that, since the audit, local prosecutors are doing their own analyses to pinpoint how many kits remain untested.

Holland and Crider also said the law might bring in kits that were never submitted to labs in the first place.

“There will probably be more kits coming,” Holland said, and for good reason — since the audit, Indiana labs received 692 additional kits, he said.

The department also found 432 of these additional cases were from incidents that happened before December 2017.

Crider said he believes the tracking system will encourage more victims to come forward about their experiences.

“In counties with a high number of sexual assaults, usually college towns, sometimes the victims haven’t participated in reporting,” Crider said. “Having the ability to track will increase communication between the victim and law enforcement.”

Crider and Holland said that increased kit testing could raise costs, with each test totaling anywhere from $750 to $1,250 depending on the number of samples in the kit.

“This could turn into a substantial number, and we recognize that,” Crider said about testing costs. “But this is the right thing to do.”

And, Crider added, increased awareness of sexual assault across industries and communities will lead to faster and more thorough testing in labs, as well as additional support from legislators.

“A tracking system can answer all of the questions that remain after the audit, and eliminate those questions,” Crider said. “We’re in a good position to get the funding we need.”

FOOTNOTE: Erica Irish is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.