I just. Oh, hi. What? So there's a couple other boxes done here that you'll see. John is one of our engineers that'll help make sure we have quality so I'm going to set up because they may start talking to you and give you some directions and then they'll let me know when we can start.
John, can you hear are you good to help.
I just realized I wanted to move a different to a different place.
Can get light, maybe a little bit of light.
It'd be better.
I'm not on audio.
That's a dumb question, but is there is it just audio we're doing.
No, we'll be recording video. Okay.
Oh yeah, John just chimed into the chat.
We used to do all of our interviews this way during COVID the early days.
Yeah, so we, we developed these techniques and then obviously as we came out of them, some of them are like, well, let's do it the way we did. And that's like, that was two years ago. How do we do that. So, yeah.
Yeah.
I like to bring in our engineers because I am terrible at like recording and doing high quality things and that's their specialty.
It makes sense to me.
So, how do I pronounce it? Is it Eileen.
It's Elsa.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
That's why we always.
Yeah, I know.
And is it net.
Connect.
Like connect.
Yeah.
Okay, I suppose.
I get every, I get every version of that, you know, so I'm sure.
I'm on audio now.
I'm not a video engineer.
I just sort of was asked to do this.
I mean, the picture looks good to me. I'm, I've already started recording. So I think you could start whenever you like.
Okay, do you want me to turn off my video or are we okay on just recording.
I'll say.
I have her pin. So we're just recording our video. Okay. Wonderful. All right. Well, we'll get started.
Okay. Sorry. Some videos just started playing on my laptop. Let me fix this. Okay. Okay. That was right.
Yeah. And we're, we'll edit. We'll be able to edit. So if something pops up or the phone rings, make sure my phone's actually on.
Yeah, me too.
Mention that.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
We're good.
All right.
Well, thank you. Thank you again for, for making time. I'm glad we could, you know, be juggle schedules. I.
Yeah, sorry about that.
Oh, no, I understand.
Give me a, let's start with what is it that you do in your organization. Give us that background of what your mission is.
Sure. So the joyful heart foundation.
Was founded in 2004 by law and order special victims unit actress and advocate.
To help survivors heal and reclaim joy in their lives to help survivors.
Get rights and resources so that they can pursue justice.
You know, and find a path to healing. And in 2010, we.
Decided that ending the rape kit backlog would be our top advocacy priority. So ever since then, which now is 15 years.
We've been doing that. We launched a nationwide campaign in 2016.
To make sure that every state across the country adopts our six pillars of rape kit reform.
And those are generally legislative but not always.
And those pillars are designed to end the backlog and also make sure it never happens again.
So was your group instrument because that was around the same window of time when Wisconsin was.
Became aware of like oh my gosh, we have a huge backlog.
Sitting in hospitals and police stations.
Was your group largely the one that was making us aware? Was that coincidental? How did that timing work out there?
We were involved definitely in 2014. We issued a Freedom of Information Act request to the Milwaukee police department.
To find out what the number of their untested kits were at that time.
And that request, you know, uncovered about.
That was around the time across the country that a lot of jurisdictions were just determining what they had on the shelves and.
We issued a series of 25 boyas across the country and that's when started really raising the issue and kind of shining a light on what was going on.
We had something to do with it and, you know, kind of.
We've been very, uh, instrumental in sounding the alarm on this issue.
So what was it like trying to get states to take action because.
In that time, Spaniel, I'm sure the states realized this was a thing.
We've heard we've had the debate here in Wisconsin about what happened and we're kind of revisiting it now.
I'm not sure what happened again, but.
There was a lot of concern about, okay, what is the official process and who pays for this? How fast do we have an obligation to take care of that.
So what were the, how would you prioritize? How would you approach prioritize it then as to how this should be handled?
This is a very complex issue.
It is also sort of complex to determine how it happened, but I will say the overarching theme.
What happens in the first place is because sexual assault is just not taken seriously as the violent crime that it is.
And so that factors in at many, many levels of government, including crime labs.
And down to law enforcement where for a long time decisions about.
Excuse me.
Long time decisions were made about when to test a rate kit were made by one person and that was whatever detective was on the case.
And, you know, there are a lot of things I can tell you about that, but that's not a good way to make this really important decision and it turned out to be very clear that that did not work in all every state in the country.
So, you know, the issue is once you determine that you have 6000 plus untested great kids. What do you do about it? And that is definitely very complex.
I will say, you know, the first thing to do is to have an inventory done.
And to make sure that every every kid in every corner of the state is counted.
And there are many states that have done that and really uncovered from corner to corner top to bottom of the state, the kids that are sitting on shelves.
It took Wisconsin a long time to do that. And at that point, at that point in time, we were very concerned about why I was taking so long.
And, you know, it kind of from there.
The next steps sort of flow from that. And so that delay initially in the inventory was sort of a harbinger of things to come.
I don't know if I answered your question. No, that that was good. And I would actually encourage you to keep going in the timeline there because obviously we're we looking at this because Brad Schimmel was the Attorney General in that time frame from 2016 or 2014.
He was in the election through 2018 election.
And he's now running for Supreme Court again it's becoming an issue politically and through ads. And I don't want you to get weighed into territory that you got comfortable speaking.
But just in terms of from your group's point of view, he was the Attorney General at that time. It was a political issue at that time.
And it sounds like inherently this was a political issue in terms of how important is this. Where do we spend money? What is the process of how this happens.
Could you weigh in on how Wisconsin did maybe in their own status and then maybe compared to other states that maybe took it more seriously or had more urgency.
Sure. You know, we actually were very concerned at the time about the timeline. I was just starting at Joyful Heart Foundation 10 years ago.
When a lot of this was starting to happen. And, you know, we we kept sort of asking what what is going on. Why is it taking so long. There were, you know, years when very, very few I think it was even less than 10 kids were tested.
And so we were engaging with folks in the state trying to find out, you know, exactly what was happening. But it was a big concern in our office. What is going on in Wisconsin.
And so, you know, from there, I think the federal grant really sort of injected a little bit of energy into the into the process, which it takes money to test rape kits. Let's be clear, you know, but we have seen other states across the country find the money.
You know, even if it's not in their budget for that year to find some money to start this process because it is so critical to get these tests done quickly.
And so there was that kind of delay was very concerning to us. The other issue that we talked a lot about was the decision of which gets to test.
So, you know, out of the 6000 kids, I think there were, you know, gosh, what was it 3000 something in the end that were tested. And I shouldn't be saying that number unless I know, but I can look at it real quick if you give me a second.
I have that number right here. Yeah. So basically out of the 6841 kids that were determined to be previously on submitted to the crime left for testing.
There were about 4,400 that were determined to be sent forward for testing.
That's a concerning number to us. That's a lot. That results in a lot of kids still sitting on the shelf.
And we have heard every excuse in the book. Why not to test these kits and Wisconsin came up with the top two. And one is that the cases were unfounded, which, you know, through a lot of research and kind of picking apart these old cases that were deemed
unfounded in many other states across the country. That was often a label that was put on investigations that that detectives didn't want to deal with. Right. They either thought the victim was not credible.
They just didn't believe the victim.
It was too difficult of a case. You know, there were so many reasons why these kits were or the cases were deemed unfounded and going into other communities where they have taken these old kits off the shelves, tested them.
And the ones that were unfounded, you know, in many cases were the ones where they did find it was a serial rapist.
And I'll say that one of the things that's really important to understand is that many rapists are serial rapists. And it's more common than we thought. And we know that by testing all these kits across the country because all these cases are matching from decades and decades.
And, you know, it's often sort of the most vulnerable people in our society that these offenders target because they do know they can get away with it because these people in the eyes of society and sometimes, you know, too, too, unfortunately, too high, too much of a time is the kind of person that law enforcement isn't going to care about.
So, you know, they target people that are very vulnerable and that society won't believe.
So the unfounded category is a very big concern for us. And when we heard that, you know, just really, it made us very worried about what the process was going to be like another category was that the case had already been charged or, you know, the person had already been adjudicated.
But they, but again, importantly, you still need that DNA into the DNA database so that cases can match together.
And so there were a lot of very, it seemed to us very uninformed decisions going on that, you know, that we were very uncomfortable with. And there were a lot of people inside of Wisconsin who are also comfortable with it too.
So I think you've explained something that's kind of quick. I've questioned, but I want you to clarify it again is we've heard two different numbers. We've heard about more than 6,000 kits in a backlog, but we've heard 4,000 kits in the backlog cleared.
So it sounds like that that almost moving the numbers are shifting the numbers to get us to make sure that the backlog is clear, but that doesn't mean every kit was tested in that process. Some of some of them were cleared without being tested.
Right. They really.
I don't know.
How do I put this?
The decision making.
Think about this for a second. It's, it's like.
At the time it felt like we just don't have the energy and the resources to test all of these kits. And let's figure out what we can put aside for now.
And, you know, we had a lot of information about what could be done with all these various cases, like we couldn't find the survivor, or we couldn't tell the survivor had consented to testing kits.
And, you know, we understand sometimes you have to triage and say, well, these, these kids will go first, but maybe we'll put these on the back burner and do a little bit more work on them.
But they never came back to those kids, the older kids that maybe had some more difficulties attached to them, but there are communities across the country who did a forklift approach and just tested them all.
And that was really what the federal government was saying was the most promising practice at that time, and Wisconsin did not do it.
So is it fair to say that our backlog was cleared.
You know, that's a difficult question. It is a difficult question. You know, there's only so far we can push and to get, you know, to get buy in on testing every single kit is what we wanted to do.
You know, so while we might say on our website.
That Wisconsin tested their backlog, you know, it was because what was approved and accepted by that state was tested, but I think, you know, we'll always wonder what would have happened if those other kits were tested.
And hey, you know, maybe in a new administration or somebody will come along and say, let's pull a sample of these, let's test them and see what we find.
But, you know, it, I can just reiterate that we were very uncomfortable with that carve out of saying these kids don't matter. And, you know, these kids do.
And the number was so big of the kids that didn't matter that it was, it was very uncomfortable.
So one, one of the arguments that Brad Schimmel has made was that his priority as Attorney General was, he didn't think it would be fast enough to ask the state for more money to hire more analysts at the state crime lab to test the kits.
And that would be more efficient to find a grant federal money or some other nonprofit to send the kits to private lab as a state.
And that came that that actually worked in that by the time he did leave office, the backlog was cleared, whether, you know, including the process we're just describing.
Is that a fair way of describing it. I mean, is he justified in that point of view, because the liberal point of view as well at the same time he didn't go to the state, he asked them for new positions to like, fund an office to go after like the ACA lawsuits and join big, you know, conservative lawsuits
on the country, and that they're saying that his priorities were were screwed up, and that he really only cared about the backlog when it came time for it was causing him election problems.
So, I don't, and yes, please feel free to weigh in or comment on what on that part of the argument is my best you can.
Right. So, so when a community or when a state
gets issue, I've seen it again and again, it gets done. Sometimes it does take time, but I have seen state after state, find the money.
And I've seen cities find the money when they didn't plan on it, and at least, you know, start this process.
So it really does come down to where your priorities are. If this is a priority for a governor and attorney general, I have seen them move mountains to get this done, and to get it done, you know, relatively quickly.
You know, making sure that the kids are being outsourced, potentially to a private lab to get it done.
It is just it really does often come down to.
I've found one person in a position of power who takes this on, and it has, you know, kind of like lights and sirens approach to it.
And in that situation I've seen it move very quickly.
So it's really, you know, it does come down to priorities and where you are putting your focus.
And then look at the timeline for Wisconsin considering when the backlog was identified when your group started really raising the alarm bells on this, and the backlog being cleared quote unquote, by the end of 2018.
Would you consider that an efficient process.
Well, that was, that's what the he's claimed he's claiming the backlog was done by 2018 I want to say that the numbers on your website.
What we found and we get now.
According to report by Wisconsin Department of Justice, there was zero untested kids in 2021.
Let me see something.
Wisconsin.
And they kept getting, they got some more money in 2022 to investigate the cases.
There's tracking system came into place.
So, I'm going to, so there's a.
From whiskey.
So, say, K I T T A dot org slash Wisconsin.
That was a link from your website. One of the press releases here.
Is that the Attorney General Shimmel.
Announces testing completed and all sexual assault kits, September 10, 2018.
And that was a headline leading into the right before the 2018 history election in that time that they had completed testing on all sexual assault kits initially inventory to designate it for testing as part of the Wisconsin sexual assault kit initiative.
So that that was the claim at the time and really I haven't seen too much pushback from,
from liberals, even at the time, his democratic opponent for Attorney General wasn't saying no, they're not all tested.
The argument was they weren't done fast enough and efficiently enough and they weren't prioritizing the proper way.
But I guess I would love to hear your response to that.
I think I'd like to look into that because I'm just saying my memory was that it took longer than that.
And I, and I feel like there was a point when they.
Somebody that he said it was done, but it actually wasn't really done.
And then they came back later and said, now it's really done and I could be just totally misremembering, but.
I remember.
I feel like I remember that happening and it was sometimes what will happen is.
You know, we've seen this other other states to say like our backlog is at zero. Well, it means they've shifted it to the private lab.
You know, and so I don't know, but I'd have to look a little bit more into that before.
Okay.
And feel free to follow up with an email or information on that. I will say that I do know that.
So he lost his election. Josh call became the democratic attorney general of Wisconsin.
He was fighting with the Republican legislature over funds to increase staffing of the crime lab. And so there was another backlog that was created in that time.
As that became a campaign issue.
Eventually that was resolved as well and more funding came in. I think Wisconsin still.
At a standard of keeping up. There isn't a backlog at this time from what I understand.
So that that could be part of it. But yes, please feel free to follow up with that if there's a different.
I guess I'm going off of what happened at the time and the press releases that are still linked to the websites.
And certainly what he was announcing.
Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
And certainly what, you know, the attorney general was announcing at the time, which is that the backlog had been cleared.
Okay.
Reading. I don't know why this says as a four seven twenty twenty one.
Testing complete on four thousand four hundred seventy two.
Three were still in the process of being tested and then.
You know, they were saying they were breaking it down after that.
But yeah, I'd like to I'd like to look more into that.
Okay.
So I guess.
And this is once again, whatever you're comfortable and able to say to talk about the Supreme Court race that we're having here, which is what the stories focused on is how appropriate is it for this issue to be part of a conversation.
About whether the person who was the attorney general at that time did a good enough job or had enough urgency and deserves the spot on the Supreme Court is he saying this isn't relevant. This isn't an issue that matters. I did this.
Well, it's just a campaign. It's a partisan attack.
And the, you know, the liberal candidate in this case is saying this needs to be part of the conversation again. This is part of his history and his record in public service and is warranted for us to be bringing it up again.
This is a justice issue. I mean, I will just say overall the rape kit backlog exists because of a failure of the criminal justice system as a whole to take sexual assault seriously and to prioritize the testing of rape kits.
So any conversation about justice in a state that has had a backlog, I think it makes total sense to talk about this issue.
You know, I can't speak to all the history that happened there, but I can say once again that.
I mean, I think, I think what's most important to understand is bringing it back to individuals and thinking about that each one of these kids represents a survivor who went through so much to have this evidence collected their body became a crime scene.
They did everything that the criminal justice system and society asked them to do, which is to report the crime to police and have evidence collected.
And they do that with the expectation will be tested. So there was a breakdown, you know, in Wisconsin, as there were in many state, most states of the system, keeping their promise to survivors.
And I think in any conversation about justice and who will lead justice in a state. This is certainly an issue that that could be rationally factored in.
Okay. And then finally, I was looking through your your pillars on your website and Wisconsin beats five of the six criteria.
I believe the one is a victim notification or right to know.
So I guess if you would just kind of sum this up, give us where does Wisconsin stand today in terms of your assessment of how we handle this process.
We have given Wisconsin five pillars. We were always a little bit concerned or cautious about the, you know, having ended the backlog pillar because of those kids that didn't get tested.
But, you know, there is a rapid tracking system in the state, which is really wonderful. That's one of the key elements of moving forward and making sure a backlog doesn't happen again.
It also allows survivors to check the status of their kit online, which is very central to their healing and their wellbeing is, you know, to know where that information where that kid is.
They really feel like the kit belongs to them and that part of them is in that kit. So that's a great way for survivors to find out where their kid is before that many left the hospital and never heard again.
And it's, you know, I always say, can you imagine if you went in for some kind of cancer screening and nobody ever called you back and told you what the result was.
And you couldn't get anybody on the phone and every time you called, you had to say the same story and it was just delayed delay and, you know, it's, it's very disheartening and it does negatively impact survivors wellbeing.
You know, there's been the mandate to test newly collected kits, which is great.
And that makes sure also a backlog doesn't happen again. The one pillar that we have been trying to pass for many years in Wisconsin is the victim's right to know the status of their kid.
This is a victim's right. We like to see it in law because not every survivor feels comfortable using the tracking system, you know, logging online, you know, people have different feelings about that.
Somebody might want to call or walk into their local precinct and ask, I want to know where my rape kit is and have that right in law so they can't be ignored.
You know, it's, it's, it's, it's actually the easiest pillar and it's just been a while.
Trying to get that done, you know, frankly, we haven't tried that hard in the last couple of years, but it is actually the last pillar that we'd like to see Wisconsin pass so.
Yeah.
Anything else that you'd like to have.
Yeah, I'll say there are some really wonderful people in Wisconsin who have worked on the backlog and did take it seriously and did prioritize it, you know, from victim service agencies to people at the crime lab, you know, across the board.
So, you know, the, the delay in testing was concerning to us, but there are very, very hardworking folks in the system in Wisconsin who wanted to do the right thing.
Can I get you to say and spell your name and give your title to swipe it correct on this recording.
Sure. It's Elsa connect.
And it's I L S E K N E C H T.
I'm the policy and advocacy director for the joyful heart foundation and I direct are in the backlog initiative.
All right. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Let me know if there's anything comes up and, you know, if you need a thing filled in.
Yeah. And if you have any more clarification on, on Wisconsin and when it officially, I would love to hear that.
I'll look back at some notes that I have from before. Yeah.
Okay. Thanks. Bye.
Right. Thank you, John.
No problem. Thank you.