III. Recommendations

To the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department

·Create a Rape Kit Backlog Oversight Board to address the nature and scope of the rape kit backlog, which will:

oInclude representatives from public and private crime laboratories, criminalists, law enforcement, prosecutor's offices, public defenders and private defense lawyers, victims' and nongovernmental organization representatives, and judges;

oIdentify the nature and scope of current capacity problems, backlogs of unprocessed rape kit evidence, and systems issues that impede the utilization of DNA forensic technology to its full potential in sexual violence cases;

oMake recommendations for eliminating current backlogs and preventing future backlogs of unprocessed rape kit evidence in local public laboratories;

oAssess the impact of "cold hits" upon local investigative, prosecution, and defense resources; and

oReport findings within six months of the board's creation, with updates every month thereafter.

·Enforce policy requiring every booked rape kit to be both sent to the crime lab and tested.

·Identify the crime lab personnel resources necessary to test every booked rape kit-both those in the current backlog and those booked in the future-in a timely manner.

·Identify the police department personnel resources necessary to pursue the investigative leads generated from testing every booked rape kit.

·Prioritize funding for the resources necessary to eliminate the rape kit backlog, test every future rape kit, and pursue investigative leads from rape kit testing.

·Implement a system to inform sexual violence victims of the status of their rape kit test, including:

oHiring a victims' advocate with expertise in conveying sensitive information to sexual assault victims; and

oCreating a policy to require law enforcement to, within six months of collection of their rape kit, notify victims of its testing status.

·Preserve every booked rape kit until it is tested.

·Account for the number of untested rape kits destroyed in the past 10 years, and establish a victim notification system for those whose kits were destroyed before testing.

To the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

·For untested rape kits in Los Angeles County's independent police departments' storage facilities, create a formal system to send those kits to the county crime lab for testing.

·Create a law enforcement unit tasked with investigating cold hit leads from the elimination of the rape kit backlog.

·Create a special sexual assault unit to handle all sex crimes investigations.

To the Mayor of Los Angeles

·Prioritize funding for the testing of rape kits in the city budget.

·Require regular reporting from the Police Department on the status of the rape kit backlog.

To the Los Angeles City Council

·Hold full Council hearings on the scope and nature of the rape kit backlog.

·Approve funding in the city budget for the testing of rape kits.

·Require full Council regular reporting from the Police Department on the progress of eliminating the backlog.

To the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors

·Continue to hold hearings on the nature and scope of the rape kit backlog, and require updates on progress in its elimination.

·Prioritize and approve funding in the county budget for the testing of rape kits.

To the Los Angeles Police Commission

·Continue to hold hearings on the nature and scope of the rape kit backlog, and require updates on progress in its elimination.

To the Los Angeles County and City crime labs

·Create better evidence tracking systems:

oConvert paper records to electronic records for easier tracking;

oEstablish a bar code tracking system that allows every piece of evidence to be scanned and tracked from the moment it is booked into evidence until testing is complete;

oCreate monthly reports on the number of rape kits tested each month, and the time it took for testing to be completed; and

oEstablish a system for simultaneous electronic notification of the crime lab, law enforcement, and prosecutors when a DNA profile matches a profile in CODIS (a "cold hit").

·Address crime lab capacity concerns, including how to find the funding and space for the DNA analysts required to test every booked rape kit in a timely manner.

·Pursue increasing the use of private crime laboratories for rape kit testing.

·Prioritize federal DNA Casework and Backlog Reduction Grant Program funds for the testing of rape kits.

To the Los Angeles County District Attorney

·Implement a "cold hit" tracking program, which would track the outcomes of rape kit testing on rape investigations, arrests, charges, prosecutions, dismissals, convictions, and exonerations.

·Create a special unit tasked with pursuing prosecutions from investigative leads generated from the testing of the rape kit backlog.

To the California Legislature

·Amend the Sexual Assault Victims' DNA Bill of Rights, Penal Code section 680, so that:

oIt applies to all victims of sexual violence, whether or not the identity of the offender is in issue;

oLaw enforcement is required to inform all victims, within six months of the collection of the rape kit, of the testing status of the kit; and

oUntested rape kits cannot be destroyed until they are tested.

To Los Angeles Rape Treatment Providers (both hospitals and clinics)

·Provide anyone who is considering or has undergone rape kit collection with a pamphlet about the subsequent steps in the rape kit process, including expected timelines, responsible authorities, and information on how to follow the status of their rape kit, along with numbers of victims' organizations that can help advocate on their behalf.

To the California Department of Justice

• Require law enforcement agencies to report to the Department on the number of untested rape kits booked into police and crime lab storage facilities.
• Create data and technical support systems to assist local and state law enforcement with the tracking of cold hit evidence.