When Aly Austin, sexual assault survivor advocate at Families First, goes to meet survivors after they've completed a sexual assault kit, they almost always have questions.

"Like where is my kit, has it been tested, what’s going on with it, can I get my clothes back," Austin said. "Those are hard questions because I have to say, ‘I don’t know.’"

But a new Indiana law that went into effect July 1 gives survivors a chance to get some of those questions answered. Senate Enrolled Act 424 will allow survivors the chance to track their sexual assault kits, commonly referred to as rape kits, through an online tracking system. It also requires law enforcement to provide information, such as when the rape kits were compiled and how the evidence was stored.

Sen. Michael Crider, R-Greenfield, has been fighting for progress in the area of convicting perpetrators of sexual assault for several years. In 2015, he sponsored "Jenny's Law," which closed a loophole that prevented prosecution of confessed rapists after a statute of limitation had expired.

In 2017, he supported the audit of untested sexual assault kits throughout the state. The audit found that over 5,000 kits sat untested in storage.

About half the kits had not been tested for various reasons, including lack of survivor permission and an existing confession from the perpetrator.

However, that still left half of the kits untested with no reason listed.

While there is no law in Indiana that mandates that all rape kits must be tested, the National Institute of Justice recommends that all sexual assault kits be tested, according to their 2017 report "National Best Practices for Sexual Assault Kits: A Multidisciplinary Approach." They listed the various benefits of testing all kits which included establishing trust in communities, identifying suspects and linking suspects to other crimes.

Crider, who authored SEA 424, said the law is another stepping stone in his fight to give victims hope.

“I really want to see how this tracking system works and try to make sure that it does what it needs to do before I tweak anything else," Crider told IndyStar. "Indiana... has made substantial progress in the last few years. I feel like we’re in a better place than we were. The system is not ever going to be necessarily perfect. ... I feel like we’ve got something to be proud of."

After the medical exam is completed for the kit, survivors will be given login information and a unique pin connected to their kit. The new tracking system, paired with new specialized barcodes, will allow automatic updates to be sent to the survivor when scanned into the system.

Sexual-assault kits completed prior to the tracking system will not be part of the new system. However, survivors can continue to contact their local law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over their kit and receive storage and status updates that way.

The tracking system is not yet active, but should be sometime this year, according to the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute, who will implement it. The cost of the system should be no more than $350,000, which will be funded by the institute.

“Hopefully that will give the victims a lot more ownership in the process, a lot more confidence that their kit is not just sitting somewhere and has lost the attention of others,” Crider said.

Austin says this kind of legislation is monumental in the pursuit of giving survivors the justice they deserve.

“From my point of view, when someone experiences a sexual assault the power is essentially taken from them," Austin said. "... So having the ability to see where their evidence is kind of gives some of the control back to the survivor."

Email IndyStar reporter Justice Amick at jamick@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @JusticeAmick.