I pit whoever the hell was supposed to be keeping track of rape kits in Detroit.

[davidm]

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/Wayne-County-Prosecutor-s-Office-works-to-test-11-000-Detroit-rape-kits-to-reveal-suspects/-/1719418/16244576/-/vrx56j/-/index.html

The Prosecutor’s Office says 11,000 rape kits have been found sitting on the shelves at a police annex building. Most of the kits were untested, until now.

…

Prosecutor Kym Worthy said the untested kits were found in 2009. Since then, her office has been sending the kits out in waves as they try to catch up. About 400 have been tested so far. Worthy said the amount of rape cases are sadly stacking up.

“The first 200 in wave one were stranger rapes where the victim did not know the attacker,” she said. “And we have been able to identify, so far, in total, 21 serial rapists.”

The prosecutor said the results are matching profiles already in the database, revealing some suspects who have raped at least two women. In some cases the suspects have raped five women. It’s a mess Worthy is trying to clean up and hopefully bring justice to rape victims across Detroit.

How the hell do you not test, and then lose track of, 11,000 rape kits?

Apparently some of these rapists are still at large.

How long were these kits sitting there? The article says they were found in 2009, but it doesn’t seem to indicate how old they were then.

What a colossal fuckup.

[foolsguinea]

Look, do you want lower taxes or not?

[billfish678]

Not only that, you’d think somebody, somewhere who had actually worked on one of those thousands and thousands of cases would have eventually gone “uhhh, guy’s…when are those results actually going to be ready?”

[Simple_Linctus]

Two questions:

1. What the hell is up with Detroit that there are so many rapists? I mean I imagine that someone in the legal system would have noticed rape kits going missing if this were common, so this must mean there are hunrderds of thousands of rapes that get reported and a rape kit given, which equates to around the same number of rapists I would think (and tens of millions of rapes)

Actually thats’ so implausible I think the numbers in the story are off

and

2. Look in the pictures in the story how these kits were stored - I don’t think I’d trust any evidence from any of this, it looks perfect for cross contamination. At least one of the following is going to happen - a) huge misscarriages of justice b) loads of rapists getting off. Probably both.

[Happy_Fun_Ball]

I’m sure only about 100 of those rapes were legetimate. 200 tops.

[grude]

It is easy to get angry at the low level workers dealing with these kits, but you should really be angry at the higher ups who refuse to properly fund the programs.

I’ve seen the same thing with badly underfunded public hospitals that literally have no aspirin, everyone fires their anger at the doctors and other healthcare workers while the politicians and higher ups laugh heartily.

[davidm]

Fair enough. I should have said whoever’s responsible for this fuckup.

[Kobal2]

@billfish678

Not only that, you’d think somebody, somewhere who had actually worked on one of those thousands and thousands of cases would have eventually gone “uhhh, guy’s…when are those results actually going to be ready?”

“Ain’t my problem”
Although I guess it’s surprising not of the *victims *made a peep. Maybe there’s a shelf in an office somewhere with 11,000 complaint forms ?

[mhendo]

@grude

It is easy to get angry at the low level workers dealing with these kits, but you should really be angry at the higher ups who refuse to properly fund the programs.

And, as foolsguinea suggested, the people who constantly want lower taxes and yet expect things like rape kit testing to magically get done anyway.

At least Detroit has some excuses in terms of tax revenue: it has lost well over 1 million people from its tax base since the start of the 1960s, and many of those left behind are poor. It’s hard to raise revenue in such conditions.

[Dallas_Jones]

I thought that February was Rape Month on the SDMB. Did I miss a memo?

Could I get a new schedule? Summer isn’t even over yet and already it’s Rape Month again. Where does the time go.

[miss_elizabeth]

@Dallas_Jones

I thought that February was Rape Month on the SDMB. Did I miss a memo?

Could I get a new schedule? Summer isn’t even over yet and already it’s Rape Month again. Where does the time go.

Now that is a joke that never gets old

[billfish678]

@Kobal2

“Ain’t my problem”
Although I guess it’s surprising not of the *victims *made a peep. Maybe there’s a shelf in an office somewhere with 11,000 complaint forms ?

Heh

[Simplicio]

I’m not sure its really that surprising. Processing rape kits is expensive, and doesn’t necessarily give cops any new information unless they have a suspect or other rape kit to compare it to. And in a place like Detroit, where the city isn’t necessarily flush with cash, I imagine resources only become available for running the test if there’s a good chance it will come back as a match on something.

But no one wants to throw them out, since some new information might come up that allows the cops to link it to another case. So they get tossed in a box in a locker somewhere, and sit.

I don’t think its the case that these kits were all “supposed” to be processed, and that someone was sitting around somewhere waiting on them, and for some reason it just never got done.

[Little_Nemo]

@grude

It is easy to get angry at the low level workers dealing with these kits, but you should really be angry at the higher ups who refuse to properly fund the programs.

I’ve seen the same thing with badly underfunded public hospitals that literally have no aspirin, everyone fires their anger at the doctors and other healthcare workers while the politicians and higher ups laugh heartily.

Exactly. It’s not just a case of telling somebody to run the tests. It’s finding the money to run the tests.

How much? About a thousand dollars a kit. Eleven million dollars is a lot of money to a police department that’s struggling to find the money to stay open twenty four hours a day.

It’s not just Detroit either. Here’s an article about the same problem in California and Texas.

[gamerunknown]

We need more free market rape kits. Just let Todd Akin decide whether a woman was raped or not. No need to even look at a woman’s v-place.

[Thudlow_Boink]

They should issue a ban on raping until they can get caught up with all those kits.

[Little_Nemo]

@Thudlow_Boink

They should issue a ban on raping until they can get caught up with all those kits.

Or impose a thousand dollar surcharge and make rape self-financing.

[VinylTurnip]

Kinda wish they’d come up with a different name for them that doesn’t make rape sound like a Chia Pet or an ant farm hobby.

[Drunky_Smurf]

@gamerunknown

We need more free market rape kits. Just let Todd Akin decide whether a woman was raped or not. No need to even look at a woman’s v-place.

v-place? What are you fucking five years old? Maybe they should check her v-place and compare it to a mans p-place and see if they have cooties.

@Thudlow_Boink

They should issue a ban on raping until they can get caught up with all those kits.

You have great ideas. You should run for office. I’ll vote for you.

[Fiveroptic]

My opinion of Kym Worthy continues to vacillate between being a shot in the arm to Justice in Detroit or being a useless fuckup with no business being the Wayne County Prosecutor. I’m not blaming her for whatever the hell happened to 11,000 rape kits but that’s just because I can’t remember when she became the Wayne County Prosecutor.

I know for sure that I’m glad I no longer live in Wayne County.