Well, by this time next year, if all goes according to plan, survivors of sexual abuse will be able to more easily track their cases and monitor the status of their forensic exam kits.

That's the DNA samples like hair, blood and urine collected after an assault is reported.

It's all thanks to a new database that'll be rolled out through New Jersey's Division of Violence, Intervention and Victim Assistance.

That's important, according to advocates, because the current process of following a case can be retraumatizing.

It often requires calling labs and law enforcement and rehashing details of the incident.

For more of those details on the program, I'm joined by the division's executive director, Patricia Teffenhart.

Patricia, thanks for coming on the show.

You've called this a survivor server centered database.

How will it work?

There are really two main components to what we'll be putting in place through the securing of these federal funds.

The first core part of this is creating a statewide database that will allow us to track in real time the collection, the tracking and the status updates of all the forensic evidence that we collect.

When a survivor of sexual assault engages through a forensic medical exam.

So historically, it's just been a challenging process to keep all of that data in real time.

It's hard for us to keep track of trends.

We can't create data driven policy decisions because getting the data has been so cumbersome.

So this new tracking system will allow us to have access to that data on a statewide level in real time.

And that should really transform how quickly we can make pivots when it comes to policy and practice reform.

Yeah.

Yeah, Go on.

No, no.

So the second most important piece, I think, really is the fact that survivors will have access to this data as well.

And so when a survivor engages in a forensic medical exam, they'll receive a personalized access code where they can log in to this portal and in real time track the status of their evidence, which will then give them more autonomy, more access to information without having to place phone calls during business hours and really reduce the amount of trauma that they experience as they're not forgetting this process.

Is it more likely that folks will have faith in the system that if they do decide to come forward, it will be seen through to the end and therefore maybe give us a more accurate depiction of how many of these incidents are happening.

Briana, you're asking all the right questions, and that is our hope.

I mean, you're right.

We know that sexual assault is the most underreported crime.

So anything that we can do to affirm survivors confidence in the criminal justice system and our ability to not just hold offenders accountable, but also to treat them and survivors enter trauma informed ways, helps us get to a place where we can have a more healing pathway forward after someone experiences victimization.

Is the state from what you can share with us, committed to going even further with the reforms?

And can you give us any sense about how many untested kits still remain?

Yeah, so that's a really great question, and I'm glad you asked it that we did.

There's a lot of confusion around what it means to be an untested kit versus, I think, what has been more popularly talked about at the national level, like a backlog.

So in New Jersey, we have really survivor centered policies.

And in fact, Attorney General Platkin issued a directive in March of last year that expanded the amount of time New Jersey will hold on to a sexual assault forensic exam kit to 20 years, which does bring us in line with national best practice standards.

So that means that a survivor could have that critical those critical specimens collected today and then have 20 years from that point in time to make decisions as to whether or not they'd like to move forward to the criminal justice system and have that kit move forward to law enforcement possession and meaning move over to the lab.

And so those kids that we hold are untested kits.

And then in New Jersey, we've been really taking a look at that data that I told you has been historically really hard for us to get a hold of.

And what we've been able to determine is that our prosecutors have the ability to call the state lab and say we have a case that's moving forward really quickly.

Can you process those specimens immediately?

And if you look at the data that we've been able to collect so far, we see that some kids have been tested in as quickly as 24 hours when they're needed to help move a criminal justice proceeding forward.

But the data that we'll be collecting now in real time will absolutely give us other opportunities to change policies and practices that could be even more transformative for survivors and actually help us with the criminal justice process as well.

Patricia Teffenhart is the executive director of the New Jersey Division of Violence, Intervention, Intervention and Victim Assistance.

Patricia, thanks so much.

Thank you so much for having me.