Forensic clinic provides first update to state's rape kit in over a decade

Input from Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners and law enforcement personnel influenced the updates made to the kit. The Bridge Forensic Clinic in Pearl formed an inter-disciplinary committee to develop updated procedures, which include taking steps away from the process and making changes to the language of the tests. The time for getting results back from the kit is expected to stay the same. 

Nurse Practitioner Beth McCord led the committee. She said the kit no longer requires body hair samples from victims, and the language was changed because it was outdated.

“We were able to take it down to nineteen steps,” she said. “we were able to take out a couple of steps that we found, talking to our crime lab, they don’t use anymore.”

The Bridge Forensic Clinic was opened by the Center for Violence Prevention in 2018, and employs three Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners. Sandy Middleton, the Executive Director for the center, said that prosecuting perpetrators of sexual violence helps victims heal.

“For so many of our clients, justice is a big part of their recovery,” she said. “they want to see their offenders punished for what happened to them… this process is just a piece of our client-based services that we can provide for them."

McCord says she hopes to see the kits circulating by the end of this year or early next.