4 ms·

This is a problem that crosses socio-ethnic boundaries as well, unfortunately. Not that I mean to minimize the historic and ongoing mistreatment of minority cr

This is a problem that crosses socio-ethnic boundaries as well, unfortunately. Not that I mean to minimize the historic and ongoing mistreatment of minority crime victims... Austin Texas -a predominantly white and affluent city- has a terrible history of mistreatment of rape kits, 850 in this case: http://www.statesman.com/news/local/city-memo-mold-found-containers-about-850-austin-police-rape-kits/qEZ7rV5h3gnrcJPdJtMhjM/ http://www.statesman.com/news/local/city-memo-mold-found-con...

code_duck 9y ago
Austin has plenty of poor people, and the white population is somewhat under 50 percent - 47 according to recent estimates. Hispanic population is about 36%. Keep in mind Austin is the core downtown city, and if you’re thinking of affluence and whiteness, you might be thinking of the suburbs. It’s possible that economically disadvantaged nonwhite people maybe disproportionately represented among rape victims, also there exists a possibility that there is economic or racial bias in the processing of rape kits.
- IWeldMelons 9y ago
  Austin is a mostly suburban city. Just look at the map.
  - code_duck 9y ago
    Thanks, I’m aware of how the city works since i lived in Austin for a couple of years. I feel like the demographic information that’s available out there can give more information then looking at the map. If you’re talking about APD, it’s fairly urban.
  - bfuller 9y ago
    That's kind of how texas works though
- wavefunction 9y ago
  Austin is more than the "core downtown city." And I am not talking about Round Rock or Cedar Park or Buda which are majority white. The downtown/near-downtown is one of the priciest places in the state of Texas as far as real-estate costs and the attendant costs of a matching lifestyle. It's only out in the middle ring of the suburbs of Far North/East/South Austin that it starts getting affordable. That is, until you get back into the affluence again in the northern bedroom communities of Round Rock, Cedar Park and Georgetown.
- dmix 9y ago
  > also there exists a possibility that there is economic or racial bias in the processing of rape kits. There were 11,000 untested rape kits over 2 decades. This hardly sounds like a mistake related to some bias. There is obviously a much bigger issue here, it wasn't individual cases being ignored based on some parameters.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I don't see how you figure. State and local governments can and do fail to provide services to neighborhoods or towns, and often the places they fail to serve tend to be poor and majority-minority. Or they could just systemically fail to pursue rapists if the victim fit certain criteria and easily achieve these numbers (the latter is what's suggested in the interview): > 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.
- heurist 9y ago
  The wealthiest part of Austin, Westlake, barely 5 minutes from downtown, isn't even officially part of Austin.
  - code_duck 9y ago
    Thanks, your comment illustrates my intent. I erred in saying downtown. What i meant to say is that Austin the city isn’t necessarily what people think of as ‘Austin’. When I think of South Austin and the area east of I35, especially as it was 8-10 years ago, I picture a working class area with low income hispanic people and my young college friends, not anyone affluent.

code_duck 9y ago

Austin has plenty of poor people, and the white population is somewhat under 50 percent - 47 according to recent estimates. Hispanic population is about 36%. Keep in mind Austin is the core downtown city, and if you’re thinking of affluence and whiteness, you might be thinking of the suburbs. It’s possible that economically disadvantaged nonwhite people maybe disproportionately represented among rape victims, also there exists a possibility that there is economic or racial bias in the processing of rape kits.

IWeldMelons 9y ago
Austin is a mostly suburban city. Just look at the map.
- code_duck 9y ago
  Thanks, I’m aware of how the city works since i lived in Austin for a couple of years. I feel like the demographic information that’s available out there can give more information then looking at the map. If you’re talking about APD, it’s fairly urban.
- bfuller 9y ago
  That's kind of how texas works though
wavefunction 9y ago
Austin is more than the "core downtown city." And I am not talking about Round Rock or Cedar Park or Buda which are majority white. The downtown/near-downtown is one of the priciest places in the state of Texas as far as real-estate costs and the attendant costs of a matching lifestyle. It's only out in the middle ring of the suburbs of Far North/East/South Austin that it starts getting affordable. That is, until you get back into the affluence again in the northern bedroom communities of Round Rock, Cedar Park and Georgetown.
dmix 9y ago
> also there exists a possibility that there is economic or racial bias in the processing of rape kits. There were 11,000 untested rape kits over 2 decades. This hardly sounds like a mistake related to some bias. There is obviously a much bigger issue here, it wasn't individual cases being ignored based on some parameters.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I don't see how you figure. State and local governments can and do fail to provide services to neighborhoods or towns, and often the places they fail to serve tend to be poor and majority-minority. Or they could just systemically fail to pursue rapists if the victim fit certain criteria and easily achieve these numbers (the latter is what's suggested in the interview): > 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.
heurist 9y ago
The wealthiest part of Austin, Westlake, barely 5 minutes from downtown, isn't even officially part of Austin.
- code_duck 9y ago
  Thanks, your comment illustrates my intent. I erred in saying downtown. What i meant to say is that Austin the city isn’t necessarily what people think of as ‘Austin’. When I think of South Austin and the area east of I35, especially as it was 8-10 years ago, I picture a working class area with low income hispanic people and my young college friends, not anyone affluent.