West Virginia will receive $3.7 million in grants to test sexual assault kits sitting in police stations across the state, never submitted to the West Virginia State Police crime lab for processing, and to work on preventing the kits from piling up in the future.
On Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the recipients of the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance $41 million Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grant program, which is expected to test approximately 13,500 kits in 20 jurisdictions. They made the announcement simultaneously with New York County District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who announced $38 million in grants to 32 jurisdictions in 20 states to test an estimated 56,475 kits.
Health care providers look for DNA evidence during sexual assault forensic exams, head-to-toe inspections that take hours to complete. The evidence gathered, from hair or semen for example, can increase the likelihood that a case will be prosecuted. The collection of evidence gathered in the examination is commonly referred to as a "rape kit."
The State Police crime lab will be able to test about 2,400 untested rape kits thanks to $1.7 million in funding through the initiative of the New York County District Attorney.
The West Virginia Division of Justice and Community Services will receive another $2 million from the Bureau of Justice Assistance Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grant program, according to the U.S. Department of Justice website.
Some of the funding from that grant also will go to victim services and preventing "conditions that lead to high numbers of tested kits," according to Nancy Hoffman, state coordinator for the West Virginia Foundation for Rape Information and Services, which is one of the grant partners.
Crime lab officials told the Gazette-Mail in 2014 that evidence from about 250 sexual assault cases was waiting to be tested at the crime lab. The number included untested kits from hospitals, as well as other evidence that needed to be examined, such as pieces of clothing and bed sheets.
The number didn't include an undetermined amount of rape kits sitting at police departments. Hoffman said the new funding will go toward those kits. It's unknown exactly how many kits have never been sent in.
Hoffman said she hopes the governor and Legislature will work to make sure kits are always tested in the future.
"Testing each kit is a critical step toward providing justice for survivors and will undoubtedly improve the state's ability to identify and hold offenders accountable for their crimes," she said in an email.
Some law enforcement agencies don't send in kits because police don't believe victims, don't believe the case is likely to move forward or only send in cases when the perpetrator is unknown, according to ENDTHEBACKLOG, a program of the Joyful Heart Foundation, an anti-sexual-abuse nonprofit. Sending in the kit even when the perpetrator is known can still be helpful, because it can tie the accused to the crime with DNA evidence.
Marla Wilcox-Eddy, director of the REACH victims services program in Charleston, noted that submitting to an exam takes courage.
"Each kit represents a human being," she said. "It's somebody who's already suffered an unthinkable violation and they've mustered up the strength to put yourself through that very difficult forensic exam. They're really putting themselves out there to keep the community safe, only to find out the kit never gets tested."
She said she is excited about the funding, but she cautioned that those who work with victims as the kits are tested will need to be sensitive. The testing could bring up trauma that victims had buried years ago, she said.
"They may have decided to keep it in the past," she said. "Now the past is coming to the present."
Wilcox-Eddy also wants to see a system in the state that would require law enforcement agencies to send in kits.
"If that evidence is collected, it needs to be accounted for," she said.
Vance said in a release that, together, the nearly $80 million in grants represented the single-largest contribution toward processing untested rape kits ever made. The plan is to test approximately 70,000 sexual assault kits.
"Today is a historic day for survivors of sexual assault across the country," Vance said. "We are refusing to accept that some criminal justice problems are just too big - too ingrained, too controversial, too expensive - to solve."
State partners in West Virginia's initiative include the Division of Justice and Community Services, the State Police Forensics Laboratory, the West Virginia Foundation for Rape Information and Services, the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorney's Institute and the Marshall University Forensic Science Center.
State Police spokesman Lt. Michael Baylous wouldn't talk about the new funding Thursday, saying he didn't know all the details and would send out a release or schedule a news conference later. Sheri Lemons, the director of the State Police crime laboratory, didn't return a call.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazette.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.