HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHP) — Pennsylvania is introducing a new rape kit tracking system, which will be the first effort to create a sexual assault evidence tracking system statewide.
Act 122 was created in 2024 and was signed into law on Wednesday to give survivors more accountability with statewide tracking.
The new program will allow survivors to view their kit’s status online, at no cost.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE | Commonwealth establishes first statewide sexual assault evidence tracking system
The Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect (PCAR) provides direct services to survivors of sexual abuse, assault, and harassment in all 67 counties across the Commonwealth. It advocated for rape kit tracking and supported the law at every stage.
Gabriella Romeo, PCAR’s director of public policy, said the new system may help address some of the challenges survivors face when reporting an assault.
“What we were finding is that it became difficult for survivors to know ‘where is my kit? has it been tested?’ They had a lot of unanswered questions,” Romeo said.
One survivor who worked with PCAR shared their experience with rape kit processing with CBS 21.
In 1991, I was raped in Pennsylvania. In 2025, more than three decades later, I began investigating my own rape. Requesting records and tracking down documentation are part of my professional skill set. Because of my efforts, I learned that my rape kit had been tested and then destroyed in 2003, twelve years after it was collected because it sat on a shelf. I, and countless other survivors, are left in the dark for decades.
Romeo said the tracking system will hopefully prevent these experiences by increasing transparency for survivors. The survivor said,
A rape kit is not just paperwork or a piece of evidence. It is an invasive examination of someone who has just had their bodily autonomy taken away. Choosing to go through that examination is an act of trust. Having no follow-up or information about the status of your rape kit is a violation of that trust – another violation against a rape survivor.
“A system like this, it can help alleviate some of the unknown and understand that my kit– my evidence– is being taken care of, and I know where it is. I know it’s in the hands of law enforcement,” Romeo said.
Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis said between 2023 and 2025, there were around 3,800 rape cases reported in the state each year. Of those cases, only half were cleared.
“We hope this new system will lead to more cases being solved and more perpetrators being put where they belong in jail,” Davis said.