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>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

>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

ben_w 9y ago
Population: 1,749,366. Kits: 11,341. Judging by how many women I know who have been willing to say they have been raped — and no, I don’t mean just pressured into something they regretted — this is probably less than one tenth of the victims.
- loeg 9y ago
  These are the kits that went untested and were forgotten in a warehouse over the course of years. Some percentage of kits were tested and not forgotten in this warehouse. The numbers here don't tell us how many kits are taken annually, what percentage of women report and get a kit done at the hospital, or how many years' worth of kits this was.
loeg 9y ago
This is the county that contains Detroit, once the largest city in the US. And still quite large, despite the attrition.
- gumby 9y ago
  > 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 9y ago
    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_United_States_by_population_by_decade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_in_the_... Perhaps you could use Wikipedia to satisfy your curiosity
    - richardwhiuk 9y ago
      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 9y ago
        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 9y ago
        That remark was not snide... I found it informative, I had no idea Wikipedia had "Demographic history of" pages.
  - loeg 9y ago
    This is nitpicking. The point is, Wayne county has a really really large population — this isn't some random rural county.
    - jsmthrowaway 9y ago
      I'm not sure being called out for claiming that Detroit was once the largest city in the United States is "nitpicking." That's just a factually wrong statement, and as a Detroit native, sets up a narrative (unintentionally, I'm guessing) that we fell from grace even harder than we did. "Detroit was once larger than New York City" is an implied claim that would unjustly amplify the collapse of Detroit to an audience that doesn't know better, particularly internationally. We fell, but not that hard. I understood your underlying point, but I don't think the correction is attempting to nitpick you, just striving for accuracy.
- loeg 9y ago
  Edit: One of the largest by population — 4th largest from the 1920s-40s. I believe it also held claim to the largest city by land area. (Not counting metro area — just city limits.)
kilroy123 9y ago
Insane. I'm definitely not a tough on crime kind of person, but these are people who are unfit to live in society. There should be no rehabilitation for these people. I hate to say it, but lock them up and throw away the key.
- swombat 9y ago
  Based on your statements here it doesn’t seem like you hate to say it. Why should there be no rehabilitation for this crime? If it is possible to fix these thoroughly broken people, why not do it?
  - orwin 9y ago
    It's the second time rape is evoqued in two days, so i'll add my personnal anecdote. Both my parents were social workers, my mother as a psychologist, my dad as youth camp director (Not a summer youth camp, more like a permanent youth camp that help children (6-15) with difficulties manage their homework, organize football/basketball tournament after school...)). This line of work made them befriend a huge variety of people, especially a prison counselor and a judge specialized in minor protection. Well, the discussions when they came home were "fun". One of those discussion was about a young man who raped a young girl. The judge said something like "it's the first time i felt guilt and compassion from a rapist". It was disturbing, so i asked her to tell me a little more than this, and she told me that at most, rapists regrets being caught, regret "not being able to control themselves" but she can never feel sentiment over the victim except jealousy. The prison counselor and my mother agreed, and my mother even said that the boy might be either a really good faker, either an extreme case. Later i learned that the boy had a schizophrenic episode and was send to a mental hospital rather than prison (as he should). I have nothing to conclude this, but i do think personnally than most rapist should be on watch after a prosecution, and should be really costly. I don't think they can reform, and the only way second crime to be safe from them is to take them out of the society (aka long prison time).
  - gamblor956 9y ago
    Sex crimes are very difficult to rehabilitate; the recidivism rate is the highest of any category of crime. Even worse, the the more serious the crime, the higher the recidivism rate gets, which is generally the opposite of most other types of crime. Source: I used to work for the sex crimes unit of the public defender.
Amorymeltzer 9y ago
Not to diminish the magnitude of this, but those numbers appear to be an error on the part of boingboing. Thankfully the source has been updated, and says: >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 >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. Still horrifying.

ben_w 9y ago

Population: 1,749,366. Kits: 11,341. Judging by how many women I know who have been willing to say they have been raped — and no, I don’t mean just pressured into something they regretted — this is probably less than one tenth of the victims.

loeg 9y ago
These are the kits that went untested and were forgotten in a warehouse over the course of years. Some percentage of kits were tested and not forgotten in this warehouse. The numbers here don't tell us how many kits are taken annually, what percentage of women report and get a kit done at the hospital, or how many years' worth of kits this was.

loeg 9y ago

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

gumby 9y ago
> 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 9y ago
  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_United_States_by_population_by_decade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_in_the_... Perhaps you could use Wikipedia to satisfy your curiosity
  - richardwhiuk 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      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 9y ago
        That remark was not snide... I found it informative, I had no idea Wikipedia had "Demographic history of" pages.
- loeg 9y ago
  This is nitpicking. The point is, Wayne county has a really really large population — this isn't some random rural county.
  - jsmthrowaway 9y ago
    I'm not sure being called out for claiming that Detroit was once the largest city in the United States is "nitpicking." That's just a factually wrong statement, and as a Detroit native, sets up a narrative (unintentionally, I'm guessing) that we fell from grace even harder than we did. "Detroit was once larger than New York City" is an implied claim that would unjustly amplify the collapse of Detroit to an audience that doesn't know better, particularly internationally. We fell, but not that hard. I understood your underlying point, but I don't think the correction is attempting to nitpick you, just striving for accuracy.
loeg 9y ago
Edit: One of the largest by population — 4th largest from the 1920s-40s. I believe it also held claim to the largest city by land area. (Not counting metro area — just city limits.)

kilroy123 9y ago

Insane. I'm definitely not a tough on crime kind of person, but these are people who are unfit to live in society. There should be no rehabilitation for these people. I hate to say it, but lock them up and throw away the key.

swombat 9y ago
Based on your statements here it doesn’t seem like you hate to say it. Why should there be no rehabilitation for this crime? If it is possible to fix these thoroughly broken people, why not do it?
- orwin 9y ago
  It's the second time rape is evoqued in two days, so i'll add my personnal anecdote. Both my parents were social workers, my mother as a psychologist, my dad as youth camp director (Not a summer youth camp, more like a permanent youth camp that help children (6-15) with difficulties manage their homework, organize football/basketball tournament after school...)). This line of work made them befriend a huge variety of people, especially a prison counselor and a judge specialized in minor protection. Well, the discussions when they came home were "fun". One of those discussion was about a young man who raped a young girl. The judge said something like "it's the first time i felt guilt and compassion from a rapist". It was disturbing, so i asked her to tell me a little more than this, and she told me that at most, rapists regrets being caught, regret "not being able to control themselves" but she can never feel sentiment over the victim except jealousy. The prison counselor and my mother agreed, and my mother even said that the boy might be either a really good faker, either an extreme case. Later i learned that the boy had a schizophrenic episode and was send to a mental hospital rather than prison (as he should). I have nothing to conclude this, but i do think personnally than most rapist should be on watch after a prosecution, and should be really costly. I don't think they can reform, and the only way second crime to be safe from them is to take them out of the society (aka long prison time).
- gamblor956 9y ago
  Sex crimes are very difficult to rehabilitate; the recidivism rate is the highest of any category of crime. Even worse, the the more serious the crime, the higher the recidivism rate gets, which is generally the opposite of most other types of crime. Source: I used to work for the sex crimes unit of the public defender.

Amorymeltzer 9y ago

Not to diminish the magnitude of this, but those numbers appear to be an error on the part of boingboing. Thankfully the source has been updated, and says: >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 >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. Still horrifying.