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After a survey found more than ninety-four hundred rape kits that should have been tested still  in police evidence lockers, lawmakers responded with money for testing the backlog, and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, there is a strict new timetable in the law to keep the backlog from returning.

Few police agencies in the state reported not having a rape kit backlog in their evidence lockers. In the state  budget that begins Friday, more than two point three million will be used to begin testing that backlog. Gretl Plessinger with the Department of Law Enforcement says ending the backlog will take time.

“We anticipate that is going to take about three years to get all those kits done” says Plessinger.

More importantly say victims advocates, is an aggressive timetable to keep the backlog from returning. Police must now submit kits within 30 days of collection or authorization by an alleged victim. Plessinger saysFDLE will then have 120 days to complete the tests.

“Lawmakers fully funded all of our forensic needs, so we are confident we’ll be able to meet this mandate” says the Public Information Officer.

Advocates say if the same DNA shows up more than once in the testing, it will prove to police that something may not have been a she-said, he-said situation.

Jennifer Dritt from the Florida Coalition Against Sexual Violence calls the testing requirements the most progressive in the nation.

“Survivors will feel validated. Law enforcement will see connections between sexual assaults they had never seen before as a result of the testing. It’s going to be great” says Dritt.

House Sponsor Janet Adkins (R-Fernandina Beach) expects the testing to produce solid leads in cold cases.

“It’s more than just the crime that has taken place. It’s the delay in receiving justice that adds injury.”

The move to end the backlog comes as police are seeing a two to three percent increase in the number of sexual assaults being reported.

Victims advocates don’t believe the number of rapes is on the upswing, but that more victims feel more comfortable coming forward. Nationally, estimates range from as few as a quarter to no more than a third of sexual assaults being reported.