According to the National Institute of Justice, the total number of unprocessed rape kits in the country is unknown. Few states publish backlog data regularly, and among the ones that do, the asymmetrical reporting makes national comparisons difficult.
To help fill the data gaps, USAFacts gathered information from various state and city law enforcement agencies and crime labs nationwide. We asked every state for rape kit backlog data between 2018 and 2022, categorizing them into two groups: those awaiting testing at crime labs and those in possession of law enforcement. To standardize the data, we defined “backlog” as the number of kits left untested at a crime lab for more than 30 days and total number of kits unsubmitted by law enforcement at the end of each year. We sent these records requests in December 2022, allowing states six months to respond before publishing.
