FBI This Week: Sexual Assault Kit Initiative

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Video Transcript

A milestone is achieved in the FBI and National Institute of Justice initiative to reduce the number of untested sexual assault kits from across the country.

Biologists at the FBI laboratory have extracted DNA profiles of suspected perpetrators from more than 1,000 sexual assault kits, or SAKs.

Those unknown DNA profiles were entered into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, to see if they matched DNA of an arrested or convicted offender.

Section Chief Tina Delgado says matches—also called hits—help law enforcement develop additional investigative leads…

Tina Delgado: To date we’ve had over 170 CODIS hits from the thousand cases that we worked. So it’s really good. Amazing success rate.

Halpern: The FBI laboratory is testing, for free, an unprecedented 30 SAKs a week.

Delgado: So the goal is that we can tell the community this is how we were able to handle a massive amount of sexual assault kits in the most efficient way possible.

Halpern: The FBI expects to test an additional 6,000 sexual assault kits and help solve more than 1,000 cases under this initiative. To submit SAKs for testing send an e-mail to SAKPartnership@usdoj.gov. I’m Mollie Halpern of the Bureau with FBI, This Week.