State provides funding to store sex assault kits

Three local law enforcement agencies are among 53 across the state that will receive funding from the Washington Attorney General’s Office for refrigeration units to store sexual assault kits.

The recipients include the Camas and Woodland police departments and Clark County Sheriff’s Office, according to a Monday news release from the Attorney General’s Office.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson is allocating $177,204 of his office’s federal Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grant for refrigeration units to help ensure evidence doesn’t expire due to a lack of storage capacity.

The initiative aims to improve the state’s response to sexual assault and end its backlog of rape kits.

The increased storage capacity will also help law enforcement agencies comply with House Bill 2318, which passed in 2020, and requires unreported sexual assault evidence — taken at a hospital and saved by law enforcement — to be stored for at least 20 years. Evidence from reported assaults must be stored for 100 years.