Idaho State Police releases 2019 legislative report on sexual assault kits in state

Idaho State Police on Monday released its 2019 legislative report on sexual assault kit tracking and the agency’s progress in testing all new and previously unsubmitted kits in the state, writes Idaho Press reporter Olivia Heersink.

Matthew Gamette, director of ISP’s Forensic Services, said by phone on Thursday almost 1,000 unsubmitted kits — which had been identified at police departments across the state in 2016 and 2017 — were supposed to be forwarded to the state forensics lab for testing by November 2018.

It took law enforcement an average of about 37 days to submit kits, the report states. But some departments took as long as 202 days, or as fast as one.

A sexual assault kit includes evidence such as clothing, personal items and swabs from a victim’s body in hopes of collecting DNA evidence that could lead to an arrest.

The Legislature, starting in 2016, mandated the tracking and later the testing of all rape kits. Before that, agencies were testing the kits at widely varying rates, a 2015 Idaho Press investigation found.

During the 2019 legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill requiring all sexual assault kits be tested, except in rare cases where the victim chooses to remain anonymous or there is a lack of evidence that a crime occurred.

“That was a huge lift for the state and these local agencies to get them all here to be tested,” Gamette said. “The last couple of years, we’ve been in the process of bringing those kits into the state lab. We knew they existed, but we had to contact local law enforcement to get them sent here.”

All of the known, previously unsubmitted sexual assault kits were forwarded to the lab by sometime in 2019, Gamette said, and an initial screening was completed on each one.

Gamette said the biological screening process shows technicians whether DNA exists on the evidence and if the DNA belongs to a male or female. If genetic material is found on evidence, the kit is further analyzed to develop a DNA profile.

The information is entered into state and national databases, such as the FBI’S Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), to check for a “hit.” According to the report, 169 entries from sexual assault kits were made in CODIS in 2019, and 10 matched a DNA profile already in the system.

“We expect that sometime in the next year, we will complete full testing on all of those previously unsubmitted kits,” he said. “But we’re also trying to balance that with what’s happening right now.”

In 2019, 640 sexual assault kits were purchased by state police and 423 of those were distributed by ISP to various collection sites — hospitals or medical clinics — in Idaho, according to the report. Also in 2019, 454 kits were collected by various sites, and of those, 350 were submitted to the lab for testing.

Last year, 479 kits were completed — screened and analyzed — and 70 others did not meet state requirements for testing.

On current cases, Gamette said the screening process is completed within 30 days of the kit entering the lab. He hopes that same timeline can be applied to DNA testing, which often takes much longer to complete. According to the report, the average turnaround time for a kit to be completed was 154 days.

“I definitely think Idaho leads the country on this issue,” he said. “Overall, I think things are going really well. Could we do better? Always.”

Gamette said they are not only trying to increase the speed with which they process a kit — they’re also trying to improve the methods used to collect kits in the first place.

Last year, the state’s then-sexual assault nurse examiner and sexual assault response team (SANE/SART) coordinator developed various training programs for nurses, such as a 40-hour, intensive course, a two-day clinical and a four-hour, evidence-only retrieval class.

“We definitely upped the game last year,” he said. “We’re getting to the people who are actually in with the survivors during the collection.”

Gamette said 130 nurses were taught by the coordinator — a full-time position ISP is currently looking to fill — during the statewide training sessions in 2019.

Gamette said they hope to train additional nurses in SANE protocol throughout the next year.

In Idaho, those types of trainings aren’t mandatory for nurses working at collection sites or with victims of sexual trauma, Gamette said. But the courses help nurses better understand the complexities of evidence retrieval and examining survivors.

“We are trying to lead the country in this issue with our response and responsiveness,” he said. “We want the victims of this crime to report and feel comfortable and confident that they will be treated with respect, that they will be believed, and that the collection is done in a professional and correct way, and that their case will be tracked and their evidence will be worked. … It is our intent to find the perpetrator of these crimes and hold them accountable.”

Sexual assault kits tested in 2019:

Ada County Sheriff’s Office — 19
Boise Police Department — 105
Caldwell Police Department — 17
Canyon County Sheriff’s Office — 7
Garden City Police Department — 12
Meridian Police Department — 13
Middleton Police Department — 3
Nampa Police Department — 52
Parma Police Department — 0
Wilder Police Department — 1

Sexual assault kits still being processed:

Ada County Sheriff’s Office — 20
Boise Police Department — 72
Caldwell Police Department — 45
Canyon County Sheriff’s Office — 16
Garden City Police Department — 27
Meridian Police Department — 15
Middleton Police Department — 0
Nampa Police Department — 74
Parma Police Department — 0
Wilder Police Department — 0

Written by: Olivia Heersink, the Canyon County public safety reporter for The Idaho Press