In December 2024, Younity’s staff and leadership team participated in a powerful moment of advocacy at the State House in Trenton. We were present when bipartisan bill S715 passed unanimously—an important step in empowering victim-survivors of sexual assault. If signed into law, this groundbreaking bill will offer victim-survivors real-time updates on the status of their Sexual Assault Forensic Exam (SAFE) kits, bringing much-needed transparency and support to the process.
According to RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, DNA evidence collected during SAFE exams has become a critical factor in achieving justice for victim-survivors. However, the overwhelming backlog of evidence is one of the biggest obstacles to prosecuting perpetrators. Bill S715, sponsored by Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, aims to reduce the number of untested SAFE kits statewide and expedite the investigation of rape cases to deliver justice and closure for victims.
While specifics have not been disclosed, the internet-based tracking system would provide transparency to victim-survivors throughout the process, from evidence collection to DNA testing. Prior to the introduction of this bill, New Jersey was 1 of only 10 states in the US that had not adopted a centralized tracking system for DNA testing.
Varonda Kendrick, Younity’s Response Teams Coordinator, works directly with victim-survivors and offered her insight in the PIX 11 coverage of this historic legislation.
“It is very important for survivors because right now, they don’t have any way of knowing what’s happening with their kit, and sometimes that makes them lose confidence in the system. For them to be able to have some type of tracking would give them more hope that something is actually happening with their case.”
In 2015, RAINN reported that rape is the most under-reported crime, with approximately 63% of sexual assaults not reported to police. While there are an infinite number of reasons that a victim-survivor may not report sexual assault, passing Bill S715 into law will ensure that transparency in processing is not one of them.
