At least 40 states have either launched similar tracking portals or are in the process of doing so. New Jersey hopes to have its public-facing database ready next year.
For sexual assault survivors in New Jersey, tracking the status of their forensic exam kits — the hair, blood, urine, and other DNA samples collected in the wake of an assault — has long meant calling labs or law enforcement, sometimes having to rehash details of the attack, or providing other personal details over the phone.
The database, Teffenhart, said, will be open to any survivor who has undergone a forensic exam, regardless of whether they’ve decided to pursue criminal charges., the database will also permit New Jersey to create its first centralized tracking system, allowing officials to analyze data around exam kit evidence, including the number of kits collected each year.
The forthcoming database in New Jersey is part of a larger effort to make the state’s system more friendly to survivors, Teffenhart said. Last year,Teffenhart noted that many survivors don’t come forward immediately after an assault, meaning that under the old guidelines, their evidence kits may not have been retained by the time they were ready to press charges.
Sexual assault is the most under-reported crime in the country, according to the FBI, which makes the number of assaults that occur in New Jersey nearly impossible to track, Teffenhart said. New Jersey’slisted 1,281 instances of rape reported to police statewide. But, said Teffenhart, existing statistics “don’t really shed a light on how prevalent victimization is.”
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