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Attorney General Mike DeWine
DeWine Issues
Sexual Assault Kit Testing Initiative Update for December
(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today released a
status update on the progress of DNA testing being conducted as part of
the Ohio Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Kit (SAK) Testing Initiative.
A total of 294 law enforcement agencies have submitted 13,931 kits to
be tested as part of the initiative.
As of December 1, 2016, forensic scientists with the Ohio Bureau of
Criminal Investigation (BCI) have completed testing on a total of
11,967 kits, resulting in 4,333 hits in the Combined DNA Index System
(CODIS).
In Cuyahoga County alone, 548 defendants have been indicted following
DNA testing conducted as part of the effort.
Background on Attorney General DeWine's Sexual Assault Kit Testing
Initiative:
Attorney General DeWine launched the initiative in 2011 after learning
that many law enforcement agencies across the state were in possession
of rape kits, some of which were decades old, that had never been sent
to a DNA lab for testing. Attorney General DeWine then made an
open call to law enforcement to send their kits to BCI for DNA testing
at no cost to them.
To ensure the timely analysis of the thousands of kits submitted as
part of the SAK Testing Initiative, Attorney General DeWine hired 10
additional forensic scientists. By hiring this additional staff,
the older kits are tested as quickly as possible, without slowing down
the testing of the more than 11,450 rape kits associated with recent
crimes tested by BCI as part of their regular casework since 2011.
Senate Bill 316, which went into effect in March 2015, required Ohio
law enforcement agencies to submit any remaining previously untested
sexual assault kits associated with a past crime to a crime laboratory
by March 23, 2016. Of the nearly 14,000 kits submitted to BCI as part
of the SAK Testing Initiative, 4,601 were submitted after the law went
into effect. The law also requires that all newly collected rape kits
be submitted to a crime lab within 30 days after law enforcement
determines a crime has been committed.
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