Sexual Assault Kit, a variant of “rape kit.”

This term refers to a person who supports victims through stages of the criminal justice process.  In some jurisdictions, victims have a right to have an advocate present when they report a sex crime.

The Oxford Dictionary defines backlog as “an accumulation of something, especially uncompleted work or matters that need to be dealt with.”  It suggests the following sentence to illustrate the meaning of the word: “The company took on extra staff to clear the backlog of work.”  For victims who surrendered their bodies to law enforcement post-rape [..]

This term can describe any lab that law enforcement uses to process forensic evidence.  States and some local agencies have their own crime labs.  Law enforcement also contracts with private labs for needed forensic work.

In a case in which law enforcement does not identify a suspect after exhausting all investigative leads, but forensic evidence is gathered from the crime scene (in a rape case, the crime scene is the victim’s body), law enforcement can process such evidence for DNA.  If a DNA profile is obtained, law enforcement can search DNA databases of offender [..]

(18 U.S.C. § 3771) This federal law is part of the Justice for All Act.  It only applies to federal crimes.  Most crime is governed by state law.

(40 U.S.C. § 13701) The Debbie Smith Act refers to the 2004 federal legislation creating the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program.  This program provides federal grants to state and local units of government, typically law enforcement agencies, to conduct DNA testing on “backlogged” samples collected from (1) crime victims and (2) criminal offend [..]

In the forensic science field, there is no consensus on meaning of the word “backlog.”

Since 1994, the FBI has maintained a national DNA index system. The national database contains samples submitted by federal, state, and local crime labs.  In addition, states and local law enforcement agencies have their own index systems. Local databases contain only local samples.

(42 U.S.C. § 14132) This refers to 1994 federal legislation authorizing the establishment of a national DNA index.  The index contains DNA identification records of people convicted of crimes; analyses of  DNA samples recovered from crime scenes; and analyses of DNA samples recovered from unidentified human remains.  This legislation also establish [..]