April is National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) is a Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) program that works to eliminate backlogs of untested rape kits. As part of these efforts, SAKI created the Core Standards for Sexual Assault Investigations Toolkit. The toolkit includes practices and procedures that should be used in every sexual assault investigation and is designed to help law enforcement personnel ensure all critical steps are taken and documented according to nationally accepted practices.
SAKI also has numerous resources for criminal justice professionals as well as resources for survivors.
About the program: “SAKI is administered by BJA and aims to create a coordinated community response that ensures just resolution to sexual assault cases through (1) a comprehensive and victim-centered approach, (2) jurisdictional capacity building to prevent high numbers of unsubmitted SAKs in the future, and (3) supporting the investigation and prosecution of cases for which SAKs were previously unsubmitted.”