BOISE, Idaho — A decade ago, a major conversation in Idaho centered on survivors of sexual violence and the lack of laws and resources to support them.
Before 2016, in Idaho, law enforcement agencies were not required to track the number of sexual assault kits they collected or report how many went untested.
Some sexual assault kits sat untested, for years, while the person responsible for a heinous crime walked free.
Idaho lawmakers did take action, passing a series of legislation from 2016-2019.
In 2016 House Bill No. 528 required the testing of most SAKs, except in circumstances where the victim requests the kit not be tested. In 2017 with HB 146 and 2018 with HB 429, laws were signed to clarify survivors' ability to pay and get sexual assault kits. In 2019 HB 116 essentially achieved a test-all status for sexual assault kits, except for in very specific cases.
Advocates claim, the series of laws on sexual assault kits bring countless benefits and quality changes to assist survivors of sexual violence.
A team from Boise State's school of public service has dug into the laws and impacts since 2019.
A new report just published expands on a previous study: Idaho's Sexual Assault Kit Initiative: The Effects of Legislation on Sexual Assault Case Processing.
There is a lot to dive into, but a major question lawmakers asked, and the community hoped would be the result, do the new laws lead to "more justice"?
Boise State researcher Dr. Lisa Growette Bostaph spoke with KTVB about the new report, starting with the idea to dive into the topic as laws were passed in Idaho.
“In all of the media attention, not just here in Idaho, but around the country about sexual assault kits mixed with what people see in popular media, movies and television, the procedural dramas. We started hearing in the communities, people saying, okay, now that there's all these sexual assault kits and they have to get tested, we're going to see all these arrests and all these convictions and we thought, well, actually, that's a research question,” Growette Bostaph said.
The team worked through data on a previous report, but now have more data points and statistics to incorporate two years later.
“What we found in the end is that there are some differences that we can see across the various pieces of legislation and before and after all the pieces of legislation. But it's not as dramatic as people would expect,” Growette Bostaph said. “Everybody was talking about how this was going to increase arrests and arrests are very interesting in this study because in the year following HB 528, the very first piece of legislation, there's a 650% increase in arrests in the year following that piece of legislation. and then it returns back to normal, just normal levels.”
So, why is that?
“We don't really know for sure, but I can venture a very educated guess that a big portion of that increase in arrests that happened after HB 528 had to do with backlogged cases that got tested. They got hits in the system and allowed officers to make an arrest,” Growette Bostaph explained.
Sexual assault kits are crucial in all investigations, but there are limitations in situations where a survivor and attacker know each other. Kits show valuable evidence, but in a court room the battle over claims of consent can complicate the utility of a kit.
The full report goes into a variety of impacts and data sets. That includes data showing there was a 67% increase in victim self-reporting after the collection of new laws. Idaho law enforcements officers also documented physical resistance during incidents in a larger percentage of cases post-HB429, the 2018 legislation, & the trend increased over time. Illustrating the evidence collected form tested kits.
The research team concludes: "the statutes resulted in more evidence documentation in sexual violence cases & increased prosecutorial review, but not a significant change in connecting victims to services or the proportion of cases ending in arrest."
Connecting survivors to resources is something that clearly needs more work, and advocates have heard that anecdotally for years.
The Boise State team also wanted to share a major thanks to Idaho State Police Forensic Services and Director Matthew Gamette, they worked to provide researchers access to data used in the report. Speaking of Director Gamette, he indicated in his most recent legislative report that, because of staffing levels, they are starting to see sexual assault kit processing delays again. With that said, researchers' emphasis a need to continue investment into testing.
The report concludes with 8 new recommendations. Now lawmakers, advocates, and law enforcement may look to make more adjustments.
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