AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine remains the only state yet to adopt any of a national group’s recommended reforms for testing and tracking sexual assault kits.
But that could change under a proposal backed by police chiefs, prosecutors and survivors of sexual violence. The bill, from Rep. Valli Geiger, D-Rockland, to establish a statewide rape kit tracking system is a step forward in a yearslong effort by advocates to improve how Maine handles a backlog of kits containing potential DNA evidence from alleged sexual assaults.
Maine is the sole state not to achieve any of the six pillars of reform called for by the Joyful Heart Foundation, a sexual assault survivor advocacy group founded by actor Mariska Hargitay. Those recommendations include testing rape kits, implementing a tracking system, informing victims of the status of their kits and funding those reforms.
Looking specifically at tracking, Maine is not among the 33 states and Washington, D.C., with statewide systems to keep tabs on rape kits, Maeghan Maloney, the district attorney for Kennebec and Somerset counties, told the Legislature’s criminal justice committee during a Monday public hearing.
The most recent estimate from a 2018 report by the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault and University of Southern Maine’s Cutler Institute for Health and Social Policy found the state had 530 untested rape kits. Meanwhile, sexual assault survivors are left with “layers of trauma and scars” that affect their ability to move through their lives, Geiger told lawmakers.
Her bill would require the Maine Department of Public Safety to establish and maintain a sexual assault forensic examination kit tracking system and align laws to require law enforcement agencies to store kits for 20 years. Police, health care providers, crime labs and district attorneys would be required to participate in the tracking system, and the state would have to compile and post online a public report on rape kit inventory by September 2025.
The tracking system must provide relevant information not only to victims who choose to report an alleged assault to police but also to those who choose not to report, and victims would have access to the system tracking their kit on an “anonymous and secure basis” under the bill.
A specific cost estimate for establishing a statewide tracking system is not yet available, but a department official said it could be substantial. The administration of Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, is currently neutral on the bill.
It builds off a measure from Sen. Joe Rafferty, D-Kennebunk, that Mills approved last year that directs the public safety department to share updates on federal grant applications and funding for a rape kit tracking pilot program.
Pilot projects aimed at tracking rape kit processing are under way in Kennebec and Penobscot counties, and Cumberland County District Attorney Jackie Sartoris said she is also seeking a pilot for Maine’s most populous county. Sartoris called rape the “most serious” of crimes that are “the least investigated.”
“There’s been a hurdle for victims to overcome,” Sartoris said Monday.
The Legislature is considering other bills during the session scheduled to end in April that relate to sexual assault, including a measure from Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, to cover an anticipated $6 million federal funding cliff for Maine organizations serving crime victims.
No one testified against the bill Monday. Among various speakers testifying in support were Auburn Police Chief Jason Moen, who is the acting president of the Maine Chiefs of Police Association; Mary Ann Ordelt with the University of New England’s sexual assault nurse examiner program; Cassie Martin with the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Christian Behr, a sexual assault investigator with the Kennebec County District Attorney’s Office.
Diane Stevens of Richmond was among those who submitted written testimony, sharing how a loved one was sexually assaulted only to see police lose track of their kit.
“This person must live daily with the horror of what was done to them,” Stevens wrote. “There is little chance without the kit that justice will be served.”
