KIYC: NJ misses rape kit testing deadline, won’t say how many remain untested
The State of New Jersey is not living up to its commitment to end the backlog of untested rape kits. Nine months after the deadline passed, Kane In Your Corner asks the Attorney General's Office for an update.
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New Jersey has apparently missed its deadline to test backlogged rape kits - a reform that came about because of a Kane In Your Corner investigation. And the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General will not even provide basic information on how many of those kits still need to be tested.
In a 2024 investigation, Kane In Your Corner examined the state's treatment of sexual assault survivors. Many survivors complained prosecutors were not even willing to test their rape kits to see if attackers could be identified through DNA. Kane In Your Corner found thousands of kits were sitting untested. Former Attorney General Matt Plakin responded by ordering those kits to be tested by the end of last year. State lawmakers then passed a law requiring all kits to be tested in the future.
State Sen. Joseph Cryan (D- Union), the bill's sponsor, credited Kane In Your Corner for bringing the issue to light.
"You are going to make New Jersey do the things that should have been done previously... That's what great journalism is all about," Cryan said.
But New Jersey is now nearly nine months past that December 2025 deadline to test the backlogged rape kits, and the NJOAG declined to tell Kane in Your Corner how many had been tested and how many still await testing.
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Instead, the agency provided peripheral detail, such as saying that the “delivery of kits to the laboratories has been divided into phases,” and that 2,400 kits were removed from the count after it was determined they'd been counted twice.
In a follow-up correspondence, Kane In Your Corner asked again, “How many of those (backlogged) kits did you test and how many remain untested?” The OAG said simply, “We won’t have additional comment.”
The state's response is disappointing to advocates for sexual assault survivors.
“We'd like to see a lot more accountability in New Jersey and a lot of more transparency about what's going on with their untested kits," says Ilse Knecht, director of Policy and Advocacy for the Joyful Heart Foundation, which advocates for survivors of sexual assault. “And honestly, we'd like them to kind of light a fire under it.”
Knecht says the state’s apparent failure to meet its own deadline puts everyone at risk.
“There are dangerous people on the streets of New Jersey,” says Knecht, “So it needs to be taken seriously, and it needs to be done at a faster pace. These kits need to be tested quickly. They need to be entered into the database and the minute that happens, you'll start seeing crimes that are being solved.”
