Fewer than half of the police departments in Butler County have complied with a state law requiring police agencies to report the number of rape kits in their possession.

Act 27, passed in 2015, requires all police agencies in the state to report to the state Department of Health how many sexual assault evidence kits remain in their possession and are awaiting forensic testing.

These rape kits contain evidence from a victim’s clothing and body that can be used for DNA testing, according to Deborah Calhoun, the scientific services director with the state police crime lab.

They are used as evidence in sexual assault cases.

Only one-third of the state’s roughly 1,000 police agencies have reported figures. From those 332 reporting agencies, about 1,850 kits remain untested, according to a report compiled by the state.

In Butler County, fewer than half of the 18 police agencies provided data to the department. A state report in April shows that there are four untested rape kits from Butler County — all from the Slippery Rock Police Department.

Terry Fedokovitz, Slippery Rock police chief, said he thinks one of those kits has since been tested, and the department has decided not to pursue charges in the case.

The other three were likely reported as “inventory” Fedokovitz said — a category that state officials don’t define in their report, but is different from backlogged evidence, which is defined as kits that haven’t been tested yet and are still part of active investigations.

Fedokovitz said the challenges of investigating rapes in a college town often produce dead-end investigations. Slippery Rock University is in the borough.

“We deal with a lot in a college town, where you know a sexual assault has taken place, but a lot of times, at least for us in our department ... they just don’t to progress forward with anything,” Fedokovitz said. “They don’t go anywhere because victims don’t want to cooperate or go forward with it.”

He recommends women pursue these matters whenever they believe they’ve been sexually assaulted.

“By all rights they need to pursue it and follow through with it, because nobody deserves to go through that,” Fedokovitz said.

The other agencies that reported in the county — all as having no untested kits — were the Adams Township police, the Butler County Detective Bureau, the Butler Township police, the Cranberry Township police, the Jackson Township police and the Middlesex Township police.

The state police statewide reported 19 backlogged kits. The state police in Butler are included in that number, but there is no figure available specific to the state police in the county, according to Dr. Rachel Levine, the physician general of Pennsylvania.

The Butler police did not report to the state, according to the Department of Health report. Lt. Anthony Fatta said the city department still is working to determine what data must be submitted.

Fatta could not say how many sexual assault cases the department has had in 2016, but he said that rape is a rare occurrence in the city.

“I would consider it a huge issue that needs the utmost attention, but how many (cases) we get, it’s very minimal,” he said.

In Cranberry, the police did not have any rape kits not yet sent out for testing, according to both the state’s report and to Kevin Meyer, chief of police.

Meyer could not provide an estimate on how many rape cases the township has, but he did say that it is not a high number.

John Hays, Butler Township police chief, said the evidence already has been submitted for testing for the only sexual assault case the township has had so far this year.

Hays said that the Butler County area does not have the same volume of sexual assault cases as larger cities. For example, the Philadelphia Police Department reported nearly 1,300 backlogged rape kits to the Department of Health.

But Dr. Levine said his department cannot estimate a backlog figure for the police agencies that did not report.

One reason the reporting percent was low may be because the agencies do not realize they have to report even if there are no backlogged kits.

“Some jurisdictions may not know,” Levine said. “It’s a work in progress with the many municipal police departments.”

The Department of Health is working with the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association to ensure police departments understand the reporting guidelines.

“(The legislation is) still new as far as police chiefs being aware that this is required reporting,” according to Tom Gross, executive director of the Chiefs of Police Association. “I think a number of chiefs were under the impression that if they have zero, they didn’t need to report.”

Neither Levine or Gross believe the lack of reporting is intentional.

“I have seen nothing to indicate that (the lack of reporting) was anything but a matter of awareness,” Gross said.

Aside from requiring reporting to the state, the law dictates a time frame for law enforcement to pick up kits and submit them for testing.

Once evidence is collected and the kit is compiled at a hospital, the police department where the alleged assault occurred is notified, according to Crissy Emerick, the director emergency services with the Butler Health System.

Then the police have three days to pick up the rape kit, and Emerick said most agencies in the county are quite prompt in response.

“The majority of (the police departments) usually pick them up within a couple of hours,” she said. “I don’t think we have a lot of difficulty getting someone here to take the kit.”

Emerick said the Butler Health System collects 30 to 40 sexual assault kits on an average year, most with the state police in Butler, the city police and the Butler Township police.

The police then have 15 days to submit the kits to a CODIS-approved laboratory for testing, according to Calhoun. CODIS stands for Combined DNA Index System.

In the state, CODIS-approved laboratories are all state police laboratories, the Department of Health laboratory, one in Allegheny County and one in Philadelphia, according to Calhoun.

Rape kits from Butler County are sent to the state police laboratory in Greensburg.

According to Calhoun, the state police processed 11 sexual assault kits from Butler County in 2015, and so far in 2016, there have been eight kits processed.

The kits are prepared in such a way that the samples can be tested for years, Calhoun said.

“(The kits) are collected in a very orderly, succinct manner to ensure integrity of evidence,” she said. “In general, the kits themselves are designed to handle extended retention times.”

After testing, the labs submit the genetic results to a CODIS database, which has local, state and national databases. Those can be searched against known offenders and known genetic samples, which could help police departments see if a person has committed other assaults or to solve other cases, Calhoun said.

“Sometimes you don’t have the names of the perpetrator, but you can put those police departments in contact with each other, and they can put together some puzzle pieces,” she said.

Hays said the law helps provide stricter guidelines and is better for the victims, providing accountability for police.

“(When departments weren’t sending kits for testing) the victims were basically getting victimized a second time,” he said. “It’ll definitely help the victims out.”