DOWNTOWN — Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez thinks sexual assault needs to be taken more seriously in Chicago and the rest of the state, and is pushing for a bill that would change the way police and officials respond to such crimes.
Alvarez helped develop the newly proposed bill that would require police to undergo more training and file reports on every sexual assault complaint and would enable victims to get updates on the testing status of their rape kit, among other changes.
The bill, which was proposed earlier this month, comes after officials examined how the state responded to sexual assault survivors from "every point," said Attorney General Lisa Madigan on Wednesday.
“The whole goal is to minimize … victims [being] retraumatized because we all know what they’ve gone through when they are the victim of a sexual assault,” Alvarez said.
Sexual assault survivors often don't report what happened to them to police, fearing they won't receive justice, won't be believed or will be blamed for the assault, Madigan said.
The bill could turn that around, encouraging survivors to report assault and helping officers and prosecutors handle the cases and respond to the victims, Madigan and other officials said.
If the bill is passed, emergency responders, including police, will have to take victim-sensitive training courses. Police departments will also have to have "evidence-based, trauma-informed, victim-centered policies" for responding to assault, according to a news release.
“Research shows how a rape victim is responded to is the most significant factor in her or his recovery,” said Polly Poskin, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
Another issue the state faces: The Illinois State Police Department has a backlog of rape kits that need to be tested. Kits from Cook County make up about half of that, Poskin said.
Poskin estimates it will be two years before the backlog is gone, but she said police have dedicated a "significant" amount of time to diminishing the backlog.
The new bill would allow victims to "track" their rape kits and request updates on their status, and it would also make it so victims older than 18 could consent to their kits being tested up to five years after the assault as opposed to the current deadline of 14 days. Survivors who were younger than 18 at the time of the assault would have until five years after their 18th birthday to consent.
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