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Kristi Mathieson represents District 151 in the Maine House of Representatives. She serves on the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee and the Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services Committee. Nina Milliken represents House District 16. She serves on the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.
Sexual assault is a horrific crime for victims. When it’s reported to police, convictions are rare, and pervasive myths around sexual assault lead to enormous hurdles in the successful prosecution of these types of crimes. Getting a sexual assault forensic exam takes hours and is an excruciating process for survivors. The state owes it to the brave women, men and children who sit through this invasive process the decency of a simple tracking mechanism.
This legislative session, we can create this system if we pass and fund LD 2129. This important bill would reform Maine’s rape kit tracking practices and fix a broken system that allows countless untested kits to languish in our hospitals, police stations and crisis centers for years.
In 2018, the Cutler Institute at the University of Southern Maine conducted a statewide study with law enforcement, sexual assault advocates, and forensic nurses that identified 10 recommendations for the state to enact a consistent, cohesive management plan for kits. But unfortunately, few — if any — of these recommendations have been adopted. In 2021, a SAFE advisory board created a kit subcommittee including victim advocates, law enforcement, lab partners and prosecutors to examine what other states are doing. Their recommendation was clear: Maine needs a tracking system with a complete inventory of all stored kits.
LD 2129 would create and implement a statewide kit tracking and inventory system. This system would operate under the tenets of trauma-informed care; it’s patient centered, collaborative and can help mitigate re-victimization for survivors. It would create a uniform data access point for law enforcement, forensic nurses and crime lab personnel. LD 2129 would require each facility to report to the state the number of untested kits they are holding, along with information about when each kit was initially collected. Tracking this information will provide ongoing insight into the incidence and prevalence of sexual assault occurring in Maine, rather than a snapshot obtained in a one-time inventory.
Additionally, the bill would create a mechanism for survivors to learn about the status and location of their exam. The gut-wrenching decision to sit through this triggering exam deserves to be treated with an enormous amount of respect, both during the exam itself and in the weeks and months that follow it. LD 2129 will give survivors of sexual assault direct access to the status and location of their kit, generate accountability and create a trauma-informed investigative process while preventing re-victimization.
We believe that supporting survivors of sexual assault should be bipartisan and uncontroversial. That’s why we were saddened and shocked when, following a work session on the bill on Feb. 7, every Republican on our committee voted against this bill, citing the inconvenience this would place on municipal police departments and a need for a wait-and-see approach. Survivors of sexual violence have waited too long already. Fortunately, all Democrats were united in strong support.
With this vote, our Republican colleagues — who are all men — showed a lack of empathy for rape survivors, a dismaying disregard for their experienced trauma, and an inexcusable unwillingness to support a proven policy that would make a tangible difference in increasing access to justice and holding perpetrators accountable.
While we are deeply disappointed by this vote, we remain determined to support women and survivors of sexual violence. Passing LD 2129 certainly won’t ensure justice for every survivor, but it is a significant step forward. Every kit represents a human being who has suffered an unimaginable, life-altering trauma. When kits are lost, survivors are re-traumatized. Maine, at a minimum, has an obligation to provide survivors a sense of control, and a feeling that law enforcement is taking their case seriously.
