California launches site to track results of rape kits after police backlogs
A police officer looks at a table containing sexual assault evidence kits at the City of Oakland Police Department on January 13, 2016 in Oakland, California, after police there stopped reporting a backlog of rape kits.
A police officer looks at a table containing sexual assault evidence kits at the City of Oakland Police Department on January 13, 2016 in Oakland, California, after police there stopped reporting a backlog of rape kits.
Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close California launches site to track results of rape kits after police backlogs 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
A California sheriff plans to establish a web platform for police departments to track their sexual assault investigations.
Oakland Sheriff-Coroner Tye Kelly plans to unveil a data management and tracking tool that will send an email notification when a rape kit is available for testing at a police department.
The goal is to help ensure the results of rape kits are not sitting in police crime labs for weeks or months.
“We know that police departments aren’t keeping track of all the rape kits that we request as part of the criminal justice system, so now they have this mechanism,” Kelly said at a meeting of police chiefs from across the state Monday.
Kelly, who last week said he would seek to eliminate or reduce sexual assault backlogs at more than two dozen police agencies, announced the plan as he launched a statewide police task force he chairs.
The idea was to help solve one of California’s toughest problems: how to collect and store sexual assault evidence, so police departments can start investigating crime.
“It should be available to every officer, and then it will save the state a significant amount of money,” Kelly said at the meeting.
The idea is that, once they get through the training and time needed to set up a police database, police could report back to the state as to whether a sexual assault kit was tested.
“You’ve got to take the time to be able to provide us with the data, and that’s the first step,” Kelly said.
Kelly said that the plan would be part of the statewide effort to curb police sexual assault and domestic violence reports to the public, in the lead-up to the upcoming gubernatorial election.
He said the plan
