ENDTHEBACKLOG, the cornerstone of the Joyful Heart Foundation’s Policy & Advocacy work, focuses on shining a light on the rape kit backlog in the United States. [Their] goal is to end this injustice by conducting groundbreaking research identifying the extent of the nation’s backlog and best practices for eliminating it, and advocating for comprehensive rape kit reform at all levels of our government.
The mission of the Joyful Heart Foundation is to heal, educate and empower survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse, and to shed light into the darkness that surrounds these issues.
Pennsylvania Report: Backlogged [Rape] Kits Have Dropped By 97% : In 2019, Pennsylvania passed S.B. 399, requiring the state police to annually conduct an untested rape kit audit. The 2020 report, released in May, showed that since then, Pennsylvania state agencies have reduced the number of untested rape kits by 97%—with less than 100 still untested. We applaud this work, and also recognize the efforts being made to bring justice to the remaining survivors who are still waiting for their evidence kits to be sent to a lab. Read More
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