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Attorney General Mike DeWine
DeWine
Announces 11,000 Rape Kits Tested
(COLUMBUS, Ohio)— Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced today
that forensic scientists with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation
(BCI) have now tested 11,000 rape kits for DNA as part of a special
initiative to secure justice for victims of sexual assault in Ohio.
"We work everyday in the Ohio Attorney General's Office to protect
Ohio's families, and analyzing these sexual assault kits for DNA is a
major part of that mission," said Attorney General DeWine. "I
commend our BCI forensic scientists who are working very hard to make
sure every single rape kit submitted to us is tested."
The 11,000 kits were analyzed as part of Attorney General DeWine's
Sexual Assault Kit (SAK) 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
that had never been sent to a DNA lab for testing. He then asked
law enforcement officials to voluntarily send their kits to BCI for DNA
testing at no cost to them.
As of June 1, 2016, authorities from 293 law enforcement agencies have
sent 13,808 rape kits to BCI for testing as part of the special
initiative, including many kits that were decades old. The
testing has led to 3,968 hits in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS),
linking crimes to offenders, identifying serial rapists, and giving law
enforcement agencies critical evidence to help solve brutal attacks.
In Cuyahoga County alone, 493 defendants have been indicted following
DNA testing conducted as part of the effort.
Senate Bill 316, which went into effect on March 23, 2015, required law
enforcement to submit any remaining older kits to a crime laboratory
within one year. Of the more than 13,000 kits submitted to BCI as
part of the SAK Testing Initiative, 4,477 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.
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 to test the older kits as quickly as
possible, without slowing down the testing of the more than 10,200 rape
kits associated with recent crimes tested by BCI as part of their
regular casework since 2011.
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