NJ State Senate committee advances bill to require all rape kits to be tested
In a primetime News 12 New Jersey investigative special, Kane In Your Corner exposed how thousands of rape kits went untested in the state, even though survivors wanted them tested.
A bill that would require all rape kits to be tested is one step closer to becoming a law after a New Jersey State Senate committee approved it.
In a primetime News 12 New Jersey investigative special, Kane In Your Corner exposed how thousands of rape kits went untested in the state, even though survivors wanted them tested.
Advocates for sexual assault survivors say that this bill is a big step forward.
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MORE: Kane In Your Corner - Victims of the System special
"If [survivors] don't want to have it tested right away, it'll be kept for 20 years, which is another important part of the bill. And if they want it tested, that it will make it to a crime lab within a timely manner and that it will be tested. So that's amazing. That's what survivors want,” says Ilse Knecht, with the Joyful Heart Foundation.
If the bill becomes a law, then all rape kits from 2019 onward would have to be tested by April 2025. All untested kits would have to go through testing next year.
