
Abandoned rape kits identify over 800 serial rapists in one Michigan county - MilnerRoute
https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2017/12/17/rape-kit-detroit/953083001/
======
danielvf
The kits were from 1984 to 2009. It sounds like cases were being marked closed
(usually incorrectly) before the kits were processed and the DNA added to the
database. Thus, the kits were tossed into storage.

For background, this is Detroit. Wayne County, in which this happened, is
demographically more than 40% Black. From the article “86% of our victims in
these untested kits are people of color.“ The city government was essentially
bankrupt for many years before making it official in 2013.

Funding for testing and investigating these kits happened in 2015. The number
of convictions since then is almost scary - that’s more than one conviction
per week.

Press releases here:

[https://www.waynecounty.com/elected/prosecutor/detroit-
rape-...](https://www.waynecounty.com/elected/prosecutor/detroit-rape-kit-
project.aspx)

~~~
rhizome
Demographically, Detroit is currently over 80% black, perhaps only
coincidentally similar to the proportion of untested rape kits. Perhaps.

However, Detroit was ~30% white in 1980, 3x what it is today, and untested
rape kits surely fed a perception of intractable crime over the intervening
years as white flight killed the city.

~~~
Brockenstein
Wayne County != Detroit, Detroit might be 80% black, but Wayne County
according to what I've read is 40.5% black.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
The difference is very stark.

Check it out at the Dot Project (turn on the overlay in the lower left).

[https://demographics.virginia.edu/DotMap/index.html](https://demographics.virginia.edu/DotMap/index.html)

That line between green and blue between Warren and Detroit is 8 Mile Road,
and yes the split between the south and north sides really is that stark.

Wayne County extends west to Livonia and Plymouth, which is a white, affluent,
low-crime area. And south through a lot of other white suburbs.

It's completely believable to me that a random, non-discriminatory processing
of rape kits would result in 86% of untested kits coming from people of color
on that map.

~~~
lsaferite
Looking where I live on that map is disturbing. There are two jails near me
and they are practically 100% green. :(

------
orf
> You're not going to find too many blond-haired, blue eyed white women ...
> Because their kits are treated differently, their cases are solved. That's
> just the way it is in this country. If you're a person of color, if you're a
> different economic class, then your case across the board, across the board,
> not just sexual assault — they're treated differently. And that's just the
> truth. People may not want to admit it, but I've seen it throughout my
> career and I know it's true ... It's just true. ... Race is at the center of
> this in many ways as well, unfortunately, we know that across the criminal
> justice system. ...

:/

~~~
Jun8
This is a good case of how two important ideas are being conflated to the
detriment of the larger lesson to be learned, I think. As far as I can tell,
Prosecutor Worthy is making two arguments: (1) Black (assume PoC approx.
equals black in this context) rape victims are treated differently than white
ones. She bases this on the fact that 86% of unsolved victim cases are from
black people (compared to ~40% of the population being black, I don't have the
exact figure, took this from danielvf's comment above). (2) That economic
class also plays a role in the discrepancy, although this point seems to be
less important to her.

The "not going to find too many blond-haired, blue eyed white women" comment
is unfortunate, not only because this uses a stereotype but also because it
seems she doesn't have the data for this.

The 40% vs 86% discrepancy is staggering, but it would be interesting to
verify analytically how class plays a role. I would be _extremely_ surprised
if a wealthy black person's rape kit were treated differently than a similar
white person in this county. And compare _that_ with other poor, mostly white
counties across the nation.

They key, I think, here is class, rather than race. NOT that race is not
important, but that can't be the 99% of teh story, as implied here. Cornel
West makes this point more bluntly in his recent criticism of Ta-Nehisi Coates
([https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/17/ta-
neh...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/17/ta-nehisi-
coates-neoliberal-black-struggle-cornel-west)).

~~~
pmichaud
Just to expand, even if it does turn out to be a race-based correlation (like
we controlled for class, and the discrepancy was still present), we still
don't know why.

One version is that a bunch of essentially similar cases come in, then the
cases for white people are prioritized over the cases for PoC, because of
racism. And therefore they get solved at a disproportionate rate. That's one
potential explanation, that may have some potential solutions.

There are a bunch of different potential explanations though.

Maybe white people are more likely to be raped at parties, whereas PoC live in
areas with less police enforcement so they are more likely to be raped by
random strangers, so the crime is harder to solve.

Maybe black people are understandably less likely to talk to the police while
they investigate anything, so it's harder to get witness testimony and the
like.

Maybe there was a successful awareness effort targeted at black people, so
they are now more likely to report when they are raped, whereas white people
only report it when the case is especially egregious and egregious cases have
more physical evidence.

I'm just making all these up to demonstrate that there are all kinds of
potential explanations of why there's a difference between races even if the
individual investigators try just as hard on these cases and the cases are
assigned without bias. In basically all these cases the answer about how to
improve this situation is different, so it's worth knowing the details. I
think it deserves further study.

~~~
dogecoinbase
_a race-based correlation (like we controlled for class, and the discrepancy
was still present)_

Racism runs deep, doesn't it?

------
theptip
> Ten thousand rape kits tested. One hundred twenty-seven convictions won,
> 1,947 cases investigated, 817 serial rapists identified.

This is crazy. I wonder how much it costs to test a kit; this could be a very
high-utility charitable donation.

Looks like there is a charity that is pushing this issue (linked from the OP):
[http://endthebacklog.org](http://endthebacklog.org)

[edited to add, looks like $8,893 per kit, from
[http://endthebacklog.org/backlog/why-testing-
matters](http://endthebacklog.org/backlog/why-testing-matters). Not as cheap
as I hoped, not as good an investment as mosquito nets
([http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-best-charity-
can-s...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-best-charity-can-save-a-
life-for-333706-and-thats-a-steal-2015-7)) but I suspect that's a pretty good
return on investment if you want to donate to a US charity.]

~~~
blueline
I think you're misinterpreting the content of that page.

the same source says $1000-$1500 per kit

[http://www.endthebacklog.org/backlog/why-backlog-
exists](http://www.endthebacklog.org/backlog/why-backlog-exists)

I'm not exactly sure what the meaning of the $8000 savings statistic on the
page you linked refers to.

~~~
theptip
Thanks - my bad. That's more like what I would have guessed.

------
athenot
> but because it's sexual assault, for whatever reason, it's very easy for
> some folks to sweep this under the rug

Wow. Just wow.

I get that resources are limited and they must prioritize. But to view sexual
assault as a low-priority item is just sick.

~~~
eecc
Considering how much the USA spends in weapons - both for its own campaigns
around the world and donations to “friends” - it’s somewhat ridiculous that
the countries’ state cannot scrape enough pocket change to contain delinquency
and protect its own citizens at home

~~~
QAPereo
The first thing makes money, the second just improves lives. Guess which is a
priority in the halls of power?

------
volkl48
I fully believe that plenty of these were not tested because of
bias/incompetence/whatever.

With that said, I'm not sure if the idea of testing them primarily for
database purposes was really on the radar in the 80s-90s. Did these national
databases even exist in this sort of form then?

\------------------

If the answer to that question is no, then a lot of them weren't tested for
understandable reasons. You have a lot of cases that fit one of the following:

\- The victim has decided it wasn't a rape/they don't want to pursue the case.
As with domestic violence charges, there's a whole lot of these cases where
the victim decides they no longer want to pursue it. And while the state can
sometimes make a domestic violence case without victim cooperation, it's
pretty much impossible to do so for a rape case. No one beats the shit out of
themselves, so you can sometimes make a DV case stick without assistance from
victim testimony/cooperation. People have sex consensually, so you mostly
can't.

\- There is a case the victim is cooperating with, but the (accused) rapist is
known and is not disputing that the intercourse occurred, just if it was
consensual. Testing the "rape kit" just proves intercourse, which is not what
the trial is hinging on.

------
gumby
There's so much more money and excitement to be gained in fighting the drug
"menace" it's no wonder actual violent crimes were ignored.

~~~
jessaustin
Yes it seems odd that no legislator has proposed that the vast sums spent
fighting a "Drug War" that can't be won be redirected to more important uses
like this.

If police could focus on violence only, so many problems we have would simply
disappear.

~~~
gumby
I am pretty sure the fact that the drug "war" can't be won is part of its
appeal.

------
quirkot
My god, how do you leave over 11k crimes just sitting in a store room... in
one county. I'm glad they're addressing this gross miscarriage of justice.
Hope it's an isolated thing (but not actually expecting it to be so)

~~~
dguaraglia
Notice the uproar whenever people encounter the term "rape culture", yet when
pieces like this come out, nobody puts two and two together: oh shit, maybe
when people complain about rape culture, what they mean is that we don't take
sexual assault half as seriously as we should.

------
Grollicus
How can this even happen? How can you misplace 11k rape kits in a way that
doesn't disrupt trust in the chain of custody? Does DNA evidence degrade after
some time? Are there juristical time limits?

Also imagine you're now happily married to some guy for 10 years and suddenly
the police comes knocking. Can't protect yourself against stuff like that.
Slow procecution is just all around bad for the society.

~~~
sigstoat
> How can you misplace 11k rape kits in a way that doesn't disrupt trust in
> the chain of custody?

if they went into some warehouse properly tagged, and were still sealed and in
the warehouse N years later, that's generally going to be good enough.

if the defense wants to raise some objection, they're welcome to, but they'd
need to come up with some actual reason the chain was broken. like, records
that the warehouse was broken in to during the time that sample was stored,
or, the EV tape was cut and not resealed by some testing tech, etc.

------
kelukelugames
>Over 800 serial rapists, criminals who have struck 10-15 times without being
stopped, were identified. 127 convictions have been made this far.

The definition of serial rapist is 10+ victims. That's a lot of them in one
county. o_O

~~~
loeg
This is the county that contains Detroit, once the largest city in the US. And
still quite large, despite the attrition.

~~~
gumby
> Detroit, once the largest city in the US

Not even close. At its peak, in 1950, it had 1.6M to New York's 7.8M. BTW
Wikipedia has various "Demographic history of" pages to satisfy your
curiosity.

~~~
MadAnthonyWayne
It was 5th with 1.8 million people, and was 4th in the 20s, 30s, and 40s
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_in_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_in_the_United_States_by_population_by_decade)

Perhaps you could use Wikipedia to satisfy your curiosity

~~~
richardwhiuk
I'm not sure what your point is here? 4th or 5th is not very close to being
largest (especially amongst cities which tend to have exponential curves in
population - e.g. it's not surprising the 1st most populous city to be 3-5x
the next largest)

~~~
MadAnthonyWayne
Only point is the parent was

a) Wrong on the population in the year given

b) Choose the incorrect decade for peak population with respect to the size of
other cities in the US.

c) Gave a snide remark to the user to use Wikipedia while unable to do so
themselves...

[Edit rate limited reply] Well I guess you learn something new everyday, but
the parent insinuated the poster did not know this to be the case with the
BTW, so you can read it however you'd like

~~~
astura
That remark was not snide... I found it informative, I had no idea Wikipedia
had "Demographic history of" pages.

------
turc1656
I think the most disturbing thing about this is that there are even 800 serial
rapists in one single county, even if it's over a 30-35 year period. That's
around 25 serial rapists a year in that one county, which is kind of
extraordinary when you think about it. Serial rapists are supposedly
incredibly rare. They say that in nearly every case it's someone that the
victim knows. This makes me think twice about that. And these are just the
ones they identified! And in just one county! I have a young daughter and
information like this kind of terrifies me.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_I have a young daughter and information like this kind of terrifies me._

Teach your child that hugs and kisses require mutual consent. Teach her it is
her choice and kissing someone once does not obligate her to future kisses.
Tell her if someone disrespects her _no_ to come get a parent. Tell friends
and relatives of yours _no_ for her if they try to insist she is obligated to
give hugs and kisses.

Being dragged off into a dark alley by a total stranger is the rare exception.
Sexual assault almost always begins with boundary violation and disrespect and
eventually culminates in rape. A child (or woman) who won't accept disrespect
and who feels empowered to have a cow at the rudeness stage is at low risk.

~~~
falsedan
I hear most perpetrators of sexual assault are men, shouldn’t your advice be
more effective at prevention/avoidance if directed at sons instead?

~~~
DoreenMichele
I would like to see all children get the message. I certainly raised my two
adult sons exactly like that.

The problem with your theory is that it is incredibly disempowering for women.
I see this over and over and over. Everyone wants to cure "rape culture" for
just one half of the equation. I don't think that works.

~~~
falsedan
I think we should try it? Teaching daughters to be responsible for not getting
sexually assaulyed implicitly communicates that men are not responsible. It
can easily be interpreted as victim-blaming.

Can you elaborate about how teaching sons not to sexually assault people is
disempowering to women? I need help understanding female empowerment.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_Teaching daughters to be responsible for not getting sexually assaulted
implicitly communicates that men are not responsible. It can easily be
interpreted as victim-blaming._

That view grows out of our current mental models. Those mental models are the
crux of the problem. Protecting yourself from criminal intent in no way
absolves the criminal of guilt.

We don't draw that conclusion about any other crime. We don't tell people that
thieves are not guilty of a crime if you failed to lock your house. We still
encourage people to lock up to protect themselves from robbers while not
thinking this somehow makes it your fault if the house gets broken into.

If you run into a bear in the woods and you run from it, it will incite the
bear's chase instinct and get you mauled. Teaching people best practices for
how to reduce the odds of getting mauled if they run into a bear is not saying
it is their fault. Refusing to teach them how to effectively handle it because
girls shouldn't know such things means girls will either not go out into the
world or they will routinely get mauled. Both of those outcomes are harmful to
the lives of girls. Neither one gives girls full lives end par with the guys.

There will always be predators. You will never achieve a perfect world. Not
arming women to cope effectively with that reality essentially dooms them to
sooner or later get preyed upon.

It also actively teaches them to be prey. But that's a nuanced discussion you
are probably not ready for and I am not super awake either, so not really up
for anything that challenging.

~~~
falsedan
I get that you should be reasonably prepared for calamitous events. I don’t
get the disempowering part, nor do I feel like it’s ok to just tell daughters
(I know you didn’t say that, but likewise you haven’t addressed how prevention
be best discussed with sons rather than avoidance with daughters). Perhaps
they are related and I’m unaware of the connection.

I don’t need a complete explanation; I’m happy to get myself educated from an
appropriate source.

~~~
DoreenMichele
There's this:

[http://www.girlscouts.org/en/raising-girls/happy-and-
healthy...](http://www.girlscouts.org/en/raising-girls/happy-and-
healthy/happy/what-is-consent.html)

You might find it useful to google for _enthusiastic consent_ and _sex
positive_ resources as well.

But you are the one coming up with this idea that it should be discussed with
one gender or the other. I raised my sons this way. My original remarks were
aimed at someone with a daughter, but there is no _position_ here on my side
to choose only one gender to educate.

I would like this to be a new cultural standard across the board. If you want
to stamp out _rape culture,_ then we need a new culture. This includes
everyone, not one gender or the other.

The idea that it should be all on men to make sure sex goes well is rooted in
current concepts of gender and heterosexual norms that actively train girls to
be reactive, not proactive. It is rooted in a patriarchal framing of the
world. This framing is inherently incompatible with female empowerment.

What if I want to ask? What then? How does your concept of focusing on men
help there?

The other thing is that putting it on men amounts to assuming guilt. This
never goes good places. There is a reason the US legal standard starts with an
assumption of innocence. Warning men they need to not be rapey bastards begins
with this assumption that there is a very big chance that they will do
something terrible if they aren't berated from the get go.

What if we treat both men and women like people who likely need to politely
negotiate a mutually acceptable arrangement to get their needs met? That
negotiation process requires substantive communication about the matter, but
it isn't inherently predatory -- unless we make it so culturally, as we
currently tend to do.

~~~
falsedan
> _But you are the one coming up with this idea that it should be discussed
> with one gender or the other._

To be clear: I'm asking you why you're not recommending this be discussed with
sons first. I thought it was weird you mentioned educating daughter and didn't
mention sons.

> _The idea that it should be all on men to make sure sex goes well is rooted
> in current concepts of gender and heterosexual norms that actively train
> girls to be reactive, not proactive. It is rooted in a patriarchal framing
> of the world. This framing is inherently incompatible with female
> empowerment._

OK, I see. Though I think that you can encourage women to be sexual empowered
& and men to avoid sexual assault.

> _The other thing is that putting it on men amounts to assuming guilt_

I don't understand this in the slightest. It sounds 100% like victim blaming.

> _What if we treat both men and women like people who likely need to politely
> negotiate a mutually acceptable arrangement to get their needs met?_

What if I have some advantage over you? Physical, economic, a weapon? There
can't be a fair agreement if one side can threaten the other, even if that
side is unaware of their advantage.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_I thought it was weird you mentioned educating daughter and didn 't mention
sons._

I was speaking to a specific individual about educating their own child. That
child happens to be a daughter. That's it. You are entirely fabricating this
idea that I was talking about the need to educate girls, but not boys.

My very first sentence is gender neutral:

 _Teach your child that hugs and kisses require mutual consent._

I only switched to female pronouns after that because I was addressing a
specific person who had specified the gender of their own child. That first
sentence stands well on its own for speaking to any parent, regardless of the
gender of their child. It was intentionally framed that way because the
message is gender neutral on purpose.

 _There can 't be a fair agreement if one side can threaten the other, even if
that side is unaware of their advantage._

Therein lies your problem. You fundamentally see men as predators and women as
prey.

This is an issue that isn't going to be resolved via some internet
conversation. I could talk at you until I am blue in the face, you would
continue to not understand, continue to accuse me of victim blaming etc.

Most likely, there is no point in investing more of my time in this
discussion. There can be no meeting of the minds here.

~~~
falsedan
> _You are entirely fabricating this idea that I was talking about the need to
> educate girls, but not boys._

I would understand your position better if you said, "I would always recommend
that we discuss this with sons first, and teach them how their actions enable
sexual assault, even indirectly". I think that's not your position though…

Indeed. I fundamentally think that men and women do not have an equal footing
in society & that the balance of power is weighted heavily in favour of men. I
feel like you want to avoid calling out this unfairness and loudly
recommending that men help redress the imbalance by changing their behaviour &
calling out disempowering behaviour in others.

I see you are very comfortable in your position; I am new to mine and it's a
learning experience.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_I would understand your position better if you said, "I would always
recommend that we discuss this with sons first, and teach them how their
actions enable sexual assault, even indirectly". I think that's not your
position though…_

No, it is not my position.

Children are born innocent. Hanging societal crap on male children for the
crime of being born male only perpetuates societal crap. Male children who
don't yet even have a sexuality should not be getting the message right out
the gate that "We know you are basically a rapey bastard, hell bent on taking
advantage of women. So we feel a strong need to inculcate you with
brainwashing to the contrary to try to mitigate your inherently evil nature."

Yes, I am aware that men have a lot of money and power in the world that can
constitute an unfair advantage. I am doing what I can to redress that. But,
among other things, starting with the assumption that boys will always have an
advantage perpetuates the problem.

You may never agree with me. Even if you eventually do, that day is probably
not coming any time soon. Investing more time in basically arguing with you
probably does neither of us any good at all.

I would appreciate it if you just drop this. I don't think this is productive.

------
keevie
Why don't women go to the police more often when they're raped? Sure is a
mystery.

~~~
jstarfish
It becomes a legal proceeding. Like any legal proceeding, your trauma now has
to be relived over the course of a criminal trial, with you having to go up on
a stand and recount the entire experience and be called a liar in a public
forum by opposing counsel and have all your neighbors (and the world) know
more about you than you'd like and fashion all manner of horrible opinions of
you.

Nobody wants to go through that.

Not to mention when your attacker is someone you know, and you wrestle with
whether or not you might have implied consent will result in absolutely
ruining someone else's life with the mere allegation.

It's not a light matter. Most cases actually aren't performed at gunpoint in
an alley.

~~~
swombat
I think the OP was being sarcastic.

~~~
jstarfish
Heh, in reconsidering the context I have to agree. The question comes up in
every discussion of the topic so I overlooked it.

------
DoreenMichele
My recollection is that it is partly money. They have to make judgement calls
on where to spend the money, and someone who has worked as a prostitute is
less likely to be a case you can successfully convict, so it gets cut. (Which
is then self fulfilling prophecy because without the DNA evidence, it is less
likely to get a conviction.)

Mariska Hargitay of SVU fame is behind this stuff. I couldn't readily find the
blurb I was looking for, but found an interview that says there are 175k
unprocessed rape kits in the US.

Helping to end the backlog sounds like a worthy cause. Bonus that it will help
redress racism and classism to some small degree since it is poor people and
people of color disproportionately impacted by the backlog of unprocessed rape
kits.

~~~
sigstoat
> I couldn't readily find the blurb I was looking for, but found an interview
> that says there are 175k unprocessed rape kits in the US.

not to dismiss that entire number (or even much of it), but it's worth noting
that many locales will collect anonymous rape kits. but a rape kit without any
kind of identifying information on it is of no evidentiary value (you can't
establish chain of custody, and you don't have a victim, etc).

further, forensic laboratories frequently operate under regulations which
forbid them from testing samples which don't have any identifying information.
so a fraction of these unprocessed kits can't be processed, and even if you
did, you can't do anything with the information.

~~~
gph
What is the purpose of an anonymous rape kit? From your post it sounds like it
doesn't really have a purpose to any criminal investigation, but if that's the
case why are they even collecting it in the first place?

~~~
DoreenMichele
[http://victimsofcrime.org/our-programs/dna-resource-
center/u...](http://victimsofcrime.org/our-programs/dna-resource-
center/untested-sexual-assault-kits/unreported-sexual-assault-kits)

------
tomcam
It is doubly tragic because the process of obtaining evidence with a rape kit
is invasive, time consuming, and uncomfortable when done by a sensitive and
properly trained examiner. Very often the examiners were men who were openly
hostile to the victims, and many women refused to be examined when they
discovered what was involved.

------
marcoperaza
Having these kits evaluated and the DNA indexed is certainly valuable.
Multiple kits revealing the same person is definitely valuable information for
law enforcement.

But something this article ignores is that the DNA collected for a rape kit
does not prove that a rape occurred. It proves that sexual intercourse
occurred. In some cases, there will be evidence of physical injuries for a
rape kit. The accusation, the nature of the evidence in the rape kit, other
evidence, the likely credibility of the victim to the jury, etc. all need to
be evaluated by the police and prosecutors in deciding whether to continue to
pursue a case.

This part of the article really gets it wrong:

> _Q: If you arrest someone for homicide, let 's say the wrong person gets
> arrested, no one tries to convince the people there wasn't a homicide.

A: Right.

Q: They might say it was the wrong guy, or we can't find the person who did
it, but no one says there wasn't a murder._

Actually, people do argue that there wasn't a murder. Not every killing is a
murder, if it is in self-defense for example. Interestingly, I think the
person being interviewed realizes this is not a very good argument, so they
more or less ignore the reporter on this point. But the reporter is clearly
not looking at this story critically.

------
mmaunder
Would love to learn more about the methodology and how they tested over 11k
kits and came up with their results, did their investigations and achieved
their convictions. Not much on that on boingboing or the source article.

------
shkkmo
> Q: One of the most astounding findings here is that you've identified 817
> serial rapists. That's 817 people who attacked more than one person — and
> crimes that could possibly have been prevented if those people had been
> caught.

> A: This is how I try to put it in context for people: There are estimated to
> be 400,000 untested rape kits in the country. In one city, in one county, in
> one state, we had 11,341.

... so a bit of back of the envelope math (assuming these number are
generalizable), that means we could have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30k
unidentified serial rapists in the country.

------
jrs95
Were the ones they've identified repeat offenders or something? I was under
the impression that a relatively small % of the population had their DNA in a
database.

~~~
dragonwriter
You don't have to be in a database before for your DNA in one rape kit to be
identified as being (nearly certainly) from the same person as your DNA in 9+
other rape kits.

~~~
loeg
The article does say they have gone on to arrest 127 people, so presumably
they were also able to identify the perpetrator from the DNA (or the testimony
of the victim).

~~~
dragonwriter
Right, but that doesn't mean the other 670+ of the 800 serial rapists were
identified against another database or way of identifying the individual
besides “the same individual as indicated in these other rape kits”.

~~~
swombat
Quite possibly some of the rape kits also included files where the victim said
“Joe did it” but wasn’t believed at the time. Now when Joe’s DNA is found in a
bunch of other rape kits where the perpetrator was unidentified, the picture
of our friend Joe gets a bit clearer...

------
nitwit005
Assuming they started right away, that's one prosecution every 23 days or so.
That's a pretty impressive pace for a single prosecutor and her assistants.

------
dandare
> Since most jurisdictions do not have systems for counting or tracking rape
> kits, we cannot be sure of the total number of untested rape kits
> nationwide. Additionally, there is no federal law mandating a tracking and
> testing rape kits. It is estimated, however, that there are hundreds of
> thousands of untested kits in police and crime lab storage facilities
> throughout the country.

[http://www.endthebacklog.org/backlog-what-it/defining-
rape-k...](http://www.endthebacklog.org/backlog-what-it/defining-rape-kit-
backlog)

I don't want to sound anti American but to an European, this is just mind
blowing. Is there any other developed nation that systematically ignores
prosecution of rapes?

------
leephillips
There was no (space for) discussion of methodology in the article. In reading
about these cases one should keep in mind that a forensic DNA test does not
uniquely identify an individual, and, if it's used to match for someone in a
large database, you must beware the epidemiological fallacy. It's also
possible that what appears to be a single "serial rapist" may be more than one
criminal.

------
berbec
Kym Worthy 2020. She has my vote. Amazing story.

------
sandworm101
Take these numbers with a grain of salt. That a rape kit was performed doesn't
mean that a rape actually occurred. Some subset of these would have been from
cases where prosecutors/cops determined that whatever happened didn't amount
to rape. Evidence is collected before such decisions are made. Then there is
another subset of cases where everyone agrees that a rape did occur, but
prosecutors nevertheless decide not to prosecute. Sometimes that occurs
because the likely perpetrator is already facing other charges. Or sometimes
the victim decides not to participate. It is not uncommon for a victim to
withdraw, to not want to testify. It's a horrible state of affairs but happens
and alters the numbers.

------
troels
It says they were found in 2009. I wonder what period they were from then?

~~~
lolc
"In 2009, 11,341 untested sexual assault kits — the results of an hours-long
process that collects evidence from the body of a rape victim — were found
during a routine tour of a Detroit police storage warehouse, some dating back
to 1984."

[https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-
kaffer/...](https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-
kaffer/2017/12/17/rape-kit-detroit/953083001/)

------
sitkack
Someone besides the rapists deserve lengthy jail time.

~~~
ben174
How about both?

~~~
sitkack
s/besides/in addition to/g

------
haltingthoughts
When are we going to separate prosecution so that a non-govermental agency
could get access to these and perform the prosecution themselves?

------
rokhayakebe
_A rapist rapes on average seven to 11 times before they 're caught._

Is this an illness?

------
MechEStudent
Absolutely inexcusable.

------
dragonwriter
Actual source article:

[https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-
kaffer/...](https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-
kaffer/2017/12/17/rape-kit-detroit/953083001/)

The boingboing article just excerpts part of it, and inaccurately summarizes
some of the rest, so it's worth skipping to the original source.

~~~
sctb
Thanks! We've updated the link from
[https://boingboing.net/2017/12/18/11341-abandoned-rape-
kits-...](https://boingboing.net/2017/12/18/11341-abandoned-rape-kits-
ide.html).

------
nether
> 86% of our victims in these untested kits are people of color. You're not
> going to find too many blond-haired, blue eyed white women ... Because their
> kits are treated differently, their cases are solved. That's just the way it
> is in this country. If you're a person of color, if you're a different
> economic class, then your case across the board, across the board, not just
> sexual assault — they're treated differently. And that's just the truth.
> People may not want to admit it, but I've seen it throughout my career and I
> know it's true

Wow.

~~~
MadAnthonyWayne
FYI the Demographics of the city of Detroit is roughly 86% black, to put it in
perspective, it's not out of the statistical norm of the city's population

~~~
Avshalom
Wayne County is only 40% and this goes back as far as '84 when Detroit City
was less than 75%

~~~
MadAnthonyWayne
Does not matter what percentage of the county is black, what matters is what
percentage of the population is where the rapes occurred, these rapes weren't
all happening in the Pointes, Northville, Livonia, etc.

The majority of these kits are from a period of time where the Demographics
were over 80% black in the city.

------
nottorp
Pray tell, what's a "rape kit"? I assume it's not a kit that makes raping
someone easier...

~~~
dang
You can do better than that. Please don't post like this to HN.

------
unclepresent
Can any news from Detroit be presented now without giving story a racial
twist. I clicked the link expecting get details of what had happened and found
a person giving me a moral lecture.

~~~
Falling3
>86% of our victims in these untested kits are people of color.

Calling it a "racial twist" sounds completely disingenuous to me. There is
obviously a strong racial component here. Why do you think it's a problem to
point that out?

~~~
pavon
Not when 82% of the population are African American.

~~~
sp332
The county is only 40% black.
[https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/waynecountymich...](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/waynecountymichigan/PST045216)
And the kits were put in storage from 1984-2009, during which time the
demographics of Detroit changed very rapidly.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Detroit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Detroit#Table)
It wasn't always 80% black.

~~~
pavon
Very good points. Thank you.

~~~
MadAnthonyWayne
They're actually terrible points, which are very shallow and not pertinent to
the situation

