prosecutor forces testing of 11k abandoned rape kits in a Michigan county - finds 817 serial rapists

[JosephDredd]

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

This is just part of the interview with the prosecutor. Read the entire thing at the link.

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

It's been a long eight years for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy.

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. Worthy and her team started the long and laborious process of testing those kits, investigating the crimes, and prosecuting the perpetrators — and launching Enough SAID, an effort to raise the money to complete the work. It's a reversal of a decades-long miscarriage of justice. This month, Worthy spoke to the Free Press about the work done thus far — and the long road ahead.

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. That means a couple of things: Number one, this problem is a lot more pervasive than people could ever have imagined. Number two, (that's) on top of the very low rate that people report in the first place. That means there is much more sexual assault going on, that it's much more pervasive than people think. I think nationally the number is about 20% of rapes that are reported, and when you get to the prosecution stage it's very, very little ... that's very sobering, very sad and very pathetic.

Q: In terms of the 817 identified serial rapists who strike between 10 and 15 times —

A: A rapist rapes on average seven to 11 times before they're caught. ... Of our set of 817 ... over 50 of them have 10 to 15 hits apiece.

Q: So how should that inform law enforcement, prosecutors' understanding of how to prevent, investigate, prosecute these crimes?

A: I'm not sure that I have an answer to that. All I can say from my perspective, even if that wasn't true, we should take these cases seriously.

Q: Testing kits, identifying perpetrators and prosecuting them is part of the work. But you're also working hard to change the system, to ensure that this can't happen again.

A: We had to do a number of things ... when we first started, we knew we didn't want to be in this place five, 10 years down the road. I don't anticipate we're going to be done with these cases — investigating, prosecuting — for another three years or so.

There has be a (sexual assault kit) protocol, and there is now in the Detroit Police Department ... Police officers do not make that decision, they just all go.

We started off with an 18-month pilot program with UPS. We knew that if you could track a package, when you order something online, you ought to be able to track a rape kit in your own state.

Legislation that was signed by Gov. Rick Snyder in 2014 ... created ... standards for when kits get to the lab — 14 days to take it to the lab and 90 days to turn it around, assuming lab has the resources. And that's statewide.

The other huge change that we made here in Wayne County ... is the training. Training officers on how you're supposed to treat victims ... about the neurobiology of trauma. When a potential victim comes into the police department and is laughing or has a flat affect, it doesn't mean they weren't raped. We reviewed many many police reports where the officers dismissed (victims) because they didn't act the way they thought they should act.

Q: All the things you were talking about, the better tracking system, the new guidelines for when rape kits get tested ... in the National Institute of Justice report on the backlog (by Michigan State University Professor Rebecca Campbell), the big takeaway there was that too often, officers didn't believe victims, and had used disbelief as a way to triage their workload.

A: They just closed cases, even cases where I think they believed the victim ... They closed cases because the women had worked as prostitutes or had mental illness issues or had substance abuse. Didn't believe them, didn't care, and this was one issue that led to the backlog of these kits.

Q: That's something we look for in certain victims — when the victim is a teenage boy of color, or a woman who has been raped, we want them to be perfect. They can't have had a drink or have worked as a prostitute, and if they have, there's a mindset that makes them almost ineligible to be a victim.

A: One of the reasons we have these untested rape kits ... and I can use Detroit as an example, 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 ... 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. ...

The training aspect is a huge aspect that can turn around this issue. If we cannot treat our sexual assault victims right, especially if justice has been denied to them for so many years, we certainly want to be able to treat our current survivors properly. As you well know, culture change is the hardest kind of change to make.

As for rape abandoned rape kits across the country:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/16/untested-rape-kits-evidence-across-usa/29902199/

After 18 years without justice, Joanie Scheske believed the man who raped her would never be caught.

That changed when St. Louis police called in 2009. Evidence in a separate, eight-year old sexual assault was finally tested and matched her attacker's DNA.

Rapist Mark Frisella, whose attack was so brutal Scheske still suffers from epilepsy, is serving 19 years in prison.

"I had a really difficult time wrapping my head around why that rape kit was never tested," Scheske said. "My case is a poster child as to why you test these kits."

A USA TODAY Media Network investigation identified tens of thousands of sexual assault evidence kits never tested by police.

In the most detailed nationwide inventory of untested rape kits ever, USA TODAY and journalists from more than 75 Gannett newspapers and TEGNA TV stations have found at least 70,000 neglected kits in an open-records campaign covering 1,000-plus police agencies – and counting. Despite its scope, the agency-by-agency count covers a fraction of the nation's 18,000 police departments, suggesting the number of untested rape kits reaches into the hundreds of thousands.

http://www.twincities.com/2017/02/1...ted-amid-struggle-over-how-to-handle-backlog/

This nurse’s refrigerator is full of untested rape kits. Here’s why

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article83241392.html

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police destroyed rape kits in more than 1,000 cases

Law enforcement agencies across the nation rely on blood, hair and other DNA evidence collected from alleged sexual assault victims to identify and prosecute rapists.

But since 2000, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have destroyed the results of sexual assault exams – commonly called rape kits – in about 1,000 cases, including alleged crimes against children, according to department records obtained by the Observer.

An expert who has studied sexual assault investigations for the U.S. Department of Justice said she had never heard of that many rape kits intentionally destroyed by a police department.

Contacted by the Observer in September, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said they did not know how many rape kits remained in their custody. The newspaper then requested the department’s records under North Carolina’s Public Records Act.

Seven months passed before CMPD fulfilled the request. The records show that the department collected 3,015 kits since 2000, and that it incinerated or threw away about one of every three.

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/woman-sues-police-department-rape-kit-untested-years/

Woman Forced to Sue Police for Refusing to Investigate Her Rape or Test Her Rape Kit — for Years

As a result of this horrific negligence, roughly 3% of rape cases in America are actually solved, despite the fact that many rape kits have a high chance of leading to an arrest since most rapists are career criminals who have their DNA on file.

In some cases, the victims even know who their attackers are, but they can not prosecute these criminals because the evidence has not been processed by police.

...

According to the Department of Justice, there are currently over 400,000 untested rape kits collecting dust in police evidence rooms nationwide, and many other estimates suggest that this number could be as high as one million.

http://www.fox7austin.com/news/local-news/mold-found-on-850-apd-rape-kit-containers

Mold found on 850 Austin Police Department rape kit containers

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-t...uston-woman-sues-city-over-6-000-12226856.php

Former Houston woman sues city, officials over 6,000 untested rape kits
Claims her perpetrator could have been caught two decades before he raped her

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/ne...ape-kits-bci-takes-cops-off-street/525217001/

Cincinatti Police Department Chief Eliot Isaac concerned transfer of rape kits to BCI takes cops off the street

Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac told members of the city's Law and Public Safety Committee Monday he is concerned about the three-hour roundtrip drive his officers need to make to deliver rape kits to the state's crime lab in London.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...unding-not-being-spent--fix-problem/29902283/

No action on rape kits despite new laws, federal money

https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetw...crowdfund-testing-for-rape-kits/#11db25f05a19

Lawmakers Want To Start Crowdfunding Rape Kit Tests

http://wlos.com/news/local/police-d...-old-rape-kit-found-in-refrigerator-with-food

Police department fined after 7-year-old 'rape kit' found in refrigerator with food

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/14/why-police-ignored-80000-kits

Money isn't the only reason why police have ignored 80,000 rape kits

After years of sitting on dusty shelves - shamefully ignored by police departments across the country - tens of thousands of rape kits will finally be tested. On 10 September, Vice President Joe Biden and New York City District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced a $79m initiative to start to whittle down the backlog.


Vance said: “I’m saying today to all the women awaiting justice, you are not forgotten ... we will prevent future rapes by taking rapists off the streets, but the grants will do more than test kits - they will provide closure for victims and families.”


But will they? Getting evidence from sexual assaults properly tested and processed is an undoubtedly an important part of the criminal justice system. But fully processed kits are not a magic bullet to putting rapists in jail, and they certainly don’t make amends to victims who have been poorly treated and their cases ignored.


When Michigan State University professor Rebecca Campbell conducted a multi-year study of untested rape kits in Detroit, for example, she reported that it wasn’t just “chronic resource depletion” that led to the backlog - but “police treating victims in dehumanizing ways.”

“[L]aw enforcement personnel regularly expressed negative, stereotyping beliefs about sexual assault victims. Victims who were assumed to be prostitutes were considered to be at fault for what had happened to them. Adolescents were often assumed to be lying, trying to avoid getting into trouble with their families by concocting a false story about being raped. Friends/acquaintances had got‐what‐they‐got because they had chosen to associate with the perpetrator. The fact that all of these victims had endured a lengthy, invasive medical forensic exam seemed to carry little to no weight.”


This shouldn’t be an entirely shocking finding - rape victims have long complained about terrible treatment at the hands of police and the criminal justice system, and we know that rapists overwhelmingly go unpunished in the United States. But there’s more than just a moral issue at hand here. When victims are treated poorly by law enforcement, they’re less likely to trust them with their stories - and they’re less likely to come back. And when victims don’t come back, the police simply don’t follow through on their cases.


This summer, for example, when Louisville Metro Police looked at why some of their rape kits went untested, Special Victims Unit Lieutenant Carolyn Nunn told local media that “a lot of our victims don’t want to go forward.” Without victims’ participation, the police won’t move forward with the case.


Lynn Hecht Schafran, director of the National Judicial Education Program (NJEP), which trains law enforcement officials to properly handle sexual assault cases, tells me that testing all rape kits is crucial, but it’s only a first step. “Even when a kit is tested, law enforcement often fails to forward the case for prosecution, and prosecutors often fail to go forward with the few cases referred to them,” she said.


Hecht Schafran also points out that a tested rape kit is not proof enough to put rapists away – it’s a piece of evidence that helps aid in prosecution. But too often – because of prevailing myths about rape and systemic victim-blaming – cases don’t even make it that far.


“Because few law enforcement officers and prosecutors are educated about the way victims behave in traumatic situations, their attitude toward victims is often disbelief and disdain,” Hecht Schafran says. That’s in part why NJEP creates curricula for police, judges, prosecutors. “We know that when this education is made available to these gatekeepers it is transformative,” she says.


If we want women to go through the grueling process of pressing charges if they are raped, we need to ensure that police and prosecutors aren’t just filling out forms and testing kits. They need to be thinking about ways to make victims feel more comfortable in an already-horrible situation, and that those in positions of power are trained, empathetic and leaving their biases at the door. And that’s going to a take a lot more than money to fix.

TLDR: there are 400 000 untested rape kits Across America and, in one Michigan county alone, a prosecutor who forced the testing of 11 341 rape kits discovered 817 serial rapists. On average, a rapist will rape 7 to 11 times before they're caught -- they found 50 suspects who raped over 15 victims. But the problem isn't necessarily funding, it's the way rape victims are perceived by investigators.

 

[lfd0311]

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

This is just part of the interview with the prosecutor. Read the entire thing at the link.





As for rape abandoned rape kits across the country:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/16/untested-rape-kits-evidence-across-usa/29902199/



http://www.twincities.com/2017/02/1...ted-amid-struggle-over-how-to-handle-backlog/



http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article83241392.html



http://thefreethoughtproject.com/woman-sues-police-department-rape-kit-untested-years/



http://www.fox7austin.com/news/local-news/mold-found-on-850-apd-rape-kit-containers



http://www.chron.com/news/houston-t...uston-woman-sues-city-over-6-000-12226856.php



https://www.cincinnati.com/story/ne...ape-kits-bci-takes-cops-off-street/525217001/



https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...unding-not-being-spent--fix-problem/29902283/



https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetw...crowdfund-testing-for-rape-kits/#11db25f05a19



http://wlos.com/news/local/police-d...-old-rape-kit-found-in-refrigerator-with-food



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/14/why-police-ignored-80000-kits





TLDR: there are 400 000 untested rape kits Across America and, in one little Michigan county, a prosecutor who forced the testing of 11 341 rape kits discovered 817 serial rapists. On average, a rapist will rape 7 to 11 times before they're caught -- they found 50 suspects who raped over 15 victims. But the problem isn't necessarily funding, it's the way rape victims are perceived by investigators.

Wayne County is not "One little Michigan county". It's funny that, given how awful your subject is, you had to throw a little dishonesty into the mix, just to make it worse.

 

[Leagon]

Jesus Christ. Can one of the cops around here please explain why this isn't as horrific as it appears?

 

[JosephDredd]

Wayne County is not "One little Michigan county". It's funny that, given how awful your subject is, you had to throw a little dishonesty into the mix, just to make it worse.

My bad. That was unintentional. I have never heard of Wayne County, did not know how big it was. I will change that.

 

[lfd0311]

My bad. That was unintentional. I have never heard of Wayne County, did not know how big it was. I will change that.

It's Detroit, bro.

 

[tonni]

This is absolutely devastating. How incredibly frustrating must it be to know your rapist walks free because the police didn't investigate the crime, or destroyed the rape test kits?

also, this: “[L]aw enforcement personnel regularly expressed negative, stereotyping beliefs about sexual assault victims. Victims who were assumed to be prostitutes were considered to be at fault for what had happened to them. Adolescents were often assumed to be lying, trying to avoid getting into trouble with their families by concocting a false story about being raped. Friends/acquaintances had got‐what‐they‐got because they had chosen to associate with the perpetrator. The fact that all of these victims had endured a lengthy, invasive medical forensic exam seemed to carry little to no weight.”

 

[DespicablePeep]

It's Detroit, bro.

Detroit rape city

 

[Armbars]

what the fuck is a rape kit

 

[HockeyBjj]

Good for that prosecutor for staying on this like a dog with a bone

 

[JosephDredd]

what the fuck is a rape kit

It's a medical examination of a rape victim to collect forensic evidence to used in a police investigation. It is collected by medical personnel, usually in a hospital, and is a highly invasive procedure for the victims of sexual assault. The collection of evidence from the body and clothing of the victim can typically last 4-6 hours according to a quick search I just did.

 

[Rod1]

 

[RerouteToRemain]

Absolutely inexcusably despicable

 

[The ScorpioN]

 

[Seano]

It's Detroit, bro.

Does that make the details in the story excusable?

 

[uppercutbus]

police will hide yo rape kit.

 

[oldshadow]

Good that kind of back log should have never happen.

 

[Gregolian]

Does that make the details in the story excusable?

No but it makes the pure number of kits that were there more understandable.

If you said like rural Maine had a 11k untested rape kits people would be even more "WTF" because of the pure number. Fact that it's Detroit the huge number is more understandable cause it's a giant metropolitan area.

 

[Seano]

No but it makes the pure number of kits that were there more understandable.

If you said like rural Maine had a 11k untested rape kits people would be even more "WTF" because of the pure number. Fact that it's Detroit the huge number is more understandable cause it's a giant metropolitan area.

I think uninvestigated rapes by the 1000s is a bit troubling, even if it is a glorified ghetto.

 

[Gregolian]

I think uninvestigated rapes by the 1000s is a bit troubling, even if it is a glorified ghetto.

Well duh but it puts the pure amount of them into perspective.

 

[method115]

Yea one of the things I learned when watching Law and Order SVU. I googled it to verify what they said and while they weren't 100% correct they were close enough. It's pretty disgusting to be honest and I can see why women wouldn't even want to bother going to the police.