No Kit Left Behind! Help Clear Colorado’s Rape Kit Backlog

After 110 DAYS of silence from Governor Polis on the devastating backlog of forensic kits, it’s time for a change.

We are two Colorado survivors and advocates trying to clear the backlog of 1700+ kits and reduce the 560-day turnaround time to a more humane 90 days. Behind every kit is a human being who deserves better.

Governor Polis has not commented on the backlog despite being the only authority to whom the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (the lab responsible for kits) answers. Now, he has withheld permission from the CBI to request additional funds necessary from the legislature to clear the 1700+ kit backlog. The wait time is over 560 days, and it is estimated that the total backlog will be even larger by the time the CBI starts processing kits.

This is a public safety crisis. Every kit is eventually entered into a national database that returns “hits” for known offenders and open investigations. Other states recently cleared their backlogs and found an average 50% "hit rate" for kits. Meaning of those entered into CODIS, half matched a known offender or open investigation. So, every untested kit is a potential serial offender with a 560-day window to continue harming more innocent people undetected.

Governor Polis has shown no sense of urgency on this public safety crisis and has expressed zero empathy for the hundreds of survivors, including child victims, stuck in the backlog.

While he remains publicly silent, privately, he claims that he cannot afford to process the entire backlog yet is spending millions on priorities like sterilizing wild horses, preventing cattle theft, and other far less urgent initiatives.

So, we started this fundraiser to clear the entire state backlog and reduce the wait time to 90 days. All funds raised will go to processing kits in the backlog. Any additional money will be donated to the Colorado SANE nurse program.

How it will work

The funds will be given to CBI and municipal labs using a legislative mechanism in the Department of Public Safety, which allows government agencies to accept private and public funds. The kits will be sent to a private lab procured through the state and contracted with CBI or a municipal lab.

All surplus funds will be donated to the Colorado SANE Nurse Program to increase accessibility to forensic exams for survivors in underserved areas. SANE nurses are specially trained registered nurses who perform the hours-long invasive forensic exam in a trauma-informed way to protect survivors from further harm in the aftermath of assault.

Please donate what you can and share with everyone you know. Even if you can’t donate much, every time this campaign gets shared, survivors suffering in silence get to be heard and every $1 raised goes to directly helping survivors. Maybe if we share it widely enough, the man responsible for their agony will listen and use his power to help, instead of hinder, the efforts to clear the backlog.