Only a small fraction of the hundreds of rape kits submitted to county police departments on Maui and Hawaii island over the past 15 years were ever tested, according to police reports submitted to the state attorney general’s office this month. The Kauai Police Department has been more aggressive in ensuring its rape kits are tested, but still has 151 untested kits.

In total, there are more than 600 rape kits on the neighbor islands that have gone untested.

The kits contain forensic evidence collected from the bodies of sexual assault victims during an often painstaking examination that can last three to five hours. The results are usually uploaded into a federal database, which has proven helpful in cities across the country in not only helping to prosecute individual defendants, but also in identifying serial rapists, closing cold cases and catching criminals who have moved across state lines.

The forensic evidence can also help exonerate the wrongfully accused.

Advocates for sexual assault victims for years have been asking law enforcement to keep track of how many rape kits they are testing. This year, the Legislature finally passed a law, backed by the Women’s Legislative Caucus, requiring the police departments to file inventory reports on their untested kits with the AG’s office.

The inventories are to form the basis of a final report due to the Legislature on Dec. 1 that, in part, lays out protocols for testing the kits, many of which have languished in storage facilities for years, as well as the best way to notify a victim if results from their kit spur a development in their case. The report is also expected to give better context and analysis as to why some kits are being tested and not others.

It’s not clear whether many of the sexual assault victims in the neighboring counties are aware that their kits weren’t tested. Advocates for sexual assault victims say that when a rape kit is submitted to law enforcement as part of an investigation it’s with the expectation that the kit will be processed.

The Maui Police Department tested only 16 out of the 166 rape kits that it received between 1999 and June 30, 2016, or 10 percent of its kits. The rate at which it was testing kits was even lower in recent years: Only five out of the 120 kits submitted to the department between 2010 and 2016 were tested, or 4 percent.

Asked why so few kits were tested, MPD spokesman Gregg Okamoto said he didn’t know.

“I don’t have that information,” he said by email. “Our report was turned over to the AG’s office so you can inquire with them.”

Okamoto did not respond to a request to interview an official within the department.

On Hawaii island, the police department tested just 16 percent of the rape kits submitted to the department between 2001 and June 30.

HPD’s inventory shows that while the department rarely tested any of the rape kits submitted to it between 2001 and 2007, it began more aggressively testing the kits in recent years.

Between 2001 and 2007, the department tested only five out of 150 kits. Between 2008 and 2016, 70 out of about 215 kits were tested.

The police department began testing more of the rape kits in response to requests from victims, said HPD Maj. Mitchell Kanehailua.

“A lot of it goes to the advocacy of the nurses and support services that assist the victims along in the process,” he said.

Before being promoted to major, Kanehailua worked in the Criminal Investigation Division. He remembers one case in 2010 when a woman was raped in an uninhabited subdivision after she had been picked up while hitchhiking.

He said the police had no leads in the case. After entering the results of the victim’s rape kit into the state’s forensic database, he said that there was a DNA match. The man had been arrested for sexually assaulting another victim.

Kanehailua said he supports testing more of the kits.

“I like the way the state is going,” he said. “I am sure that testing all of the kits will be beneficial somehow. I think we are going in the right direction, definitely.”

The Kauai Police Department had the highest overall rate of testing. The department tested 33 percent of the rape kits submitted to it between 2001 and 2016. This is due in large part to its efforts in 2014 to begin clearing out its backlog with the help of federal funds.

The department still hasn’t tested any of its rape kits submitted between 2001 and 2007. But in 2014, it began testing kits that date back to 2008, many of which have now been processed.

Sarah Blane, a KPD spokeswoman, didn’t respond to questions for this story.

The Star-Advertiser submitted an open records request for the reports in August in anticipation of a Sept. 1 statutory deadline for submitting the inventories to the attorney general’s office. On Sept. 15, the AG’s office said that none of the county police departments had submitted the reports by the deadline.

In response to a renewed request for the reports last week, the department said it had made a mistake and that the Maui Police Department had actually filed its report before the Sept. 1 deadline.

The three neighbor island reports were released by the AG’s office on Thursday.

The Honolulu Police Department has yet to submit its report on untested rape kits. HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu said that the report is being finalized and will be submitted to the AG’s office soon.

In February, the department said that it had 1,500 untested rape kits and estimated that about 15 to 20 percent of its kits have been tested.

Hawaii’s police departments are not alone when it comes to not testing rape kits. But as political pressure has mounted nationally in recent years, increasing numbers of cities have been processing thousands of backlogged kits. For instance, in 1999, New York City had a backlog of about 17,000 untested rape kits, which it cleared by 2003 at a cost of about $12 million, according to the Joyful Heart Foundation, a national organization that advocates on behalf of rape victims.

The testing resulted in more than 2,000 matches in the national DNA database and 200 arrests, according to the foundation. New York subsequently adopted a policy of testing every rape kit it booked into evidence.

The Joyful Heart Foundation supports testing all rape kits that are submitted to the police, except in cases where a victim may have a kit done, but hasn’t decided yet whether he or she wants to move forward with a case.

Kata Issari, executive director of the Joyful Heart Foundation’s Hawaii office, said that the county reports were an important first step.

“We applaud the Kauai, Maui and Hawaii police departments for their transparency, which demonstrates their commitment to moving forward constructively. These responses underscore why we at Joyful Heart seek to shine a light on the rape kit backlog. When the extent of a jurisdiction’s backlog is revealed, real reform can begin,” said Issari by email. “By accounting for the number of untested kits in their custody, these three counties continue to take meaningful steps toward increasing safety in their communities. Testing kits solves multiple crimes, holds offenders accountable, and brings justice to sexual assault survivors.”

The attorney general’s office also announced last week that it had secured a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to help the police departments test rape kits, assist with victim notification and services and support a community response team.

The Legislature also appropriated $500,000 this year for testing at least 500 rape kits. The AG’s office is working on sending kits to a private lab.