MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Tennessee State Sen. London Lamar introduced Senate Bill 71 Tuesday to improve the turnaround time for sexual assault kits in the state’s crime labs.
Sen. Lamar said this is a bipartisan issue and shouldn’t be difficult to get signed into law.
In 2022, the average forensic biology turnaround time for sex offense cases alone was just under a year. She’s pushing to change that from one year to 30 days.
“I think there needs to be more efforts to bring equality and equity in the testing process inefficiency,” Sen. Lamar said. “By putting in a 30-day requirement, it would push the state to one, increase the pay rate of those scientists who do test the rape kits. Right now, we are the lowest pay rate of scientists of equal level in the region.”
Deborah Clubb, executive director of the Memphis Area Women’s Council, has worked with TBI before on the historic backlog in 2014 and 2015. Clubb said she agrees with Senator Lamar that the scientists and TBI are working their hardest to correct delayed testing but can only do so much without proper funding to pay their employees.
“Those labs are all so overwhelmed by many, many jurisdictions wanting to do this important work that’s been let go for decades,” Clubb said.
Clubb added she wants to see the 30-day policy implemented but knows it may not be feasible in the short term.
“Her 30-day deadline may not be what we see at the end, but hopefully we will certainly get a real hard look at the budgeting for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation,” Clubb said. “For raising those salaries so that we can hire the scientists that are needed and then equip them in facilities across the state with all the tools and equipment and space they need to get this work done.”
Sen. Lamar said this is just a small step the state needs to take to ensure safety of all residents, briefly mentioning the Eliza Fletcher case and how quicker sexual assault kit testing could have prevented the incident.
“With everything that’s going on around the idea of rape and that we’ve seen with many cases in Shelby County and across the state of Tennessee, we know that we need to do more to ensure that these cases are handled quickly and that these crimes can be solved quicker so that we can save the lives of many men and women in our state.”
Sen. Lamar hopes this bill will go into place around 2024, she said there’s plenty of time for the legislation to pass. As of right now, her office says they do not currently have the dollar amount this state bill would cost taxpayers.