4 ms·

An Immoral, DIY Rape Kit Startup

63 points by owens99 6y ago

underseacables 6y ago
Rather than a “rape kit start up,” which is a really awful phrase to use, why don’t we process all of the backlog rape kits that are sitting in the evidence lockers across the country, first.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  http://www.endthebacklog.org http://www.endthebacklog.org Founded by Mariska Hargitay of “Law and Order: SVU” fame.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Because the startup is basically just a few people who believe in the idea, whereas the backlog of rape kids is a problem distributed over the entire country through the institutional neglect of thousands of people? If the two people who founded this startup were going to take your advice - how would they do it? Just send a check to crime labs all over the country and hope they process the kit? Start a letter writing campaign?
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Doing it as a startup means you’re out of touch, don’t appreciate the scale of the problem and the work involved, and the risk you put survivors in of not being able to get justice. This is a policy and legal challenge, not a business.
    - oh_sigh 6y ago
      Okay - so let's cancel the startup that these two people are doing. How should they best see the changes they think need to happen?
    - e6fuehere 6y ago
      Why can't it be both? The tweets and comments like yours come off as wildly tone deaf to me. The system is failing people /now/ and there are people trying to provide a supplemental solution to that failing. If startups like this are so problematic then the answer should be rendering them irrelevant not demonizing their efforts. Give victims something better instead of fighting to limit competing options. If the diy kits end up failing to demonstrate legal merit then it's not like they'll be especially in-demand anyway.
      - nucleardog 6y ago
        > The system is failing people /now/ and there are people trying to provide a supplemental solution to that failing. Frankly, this sounds like typical Silicon Valley attitude applied totally inappropriately. "Just get a minimum product out, we'll figure out how to make it work later, or pivot to another market." That's fine if you're releasing the next todo list app. That's not fine if you're providing women rape kits that, for all intents and purposes a rape kit would be used for, are useless. This severely impacts people's lives at their absolute worst moments. You might give them the benefit of the doubt if there was even a remotely feasible path for this to be useful without a major rework of the justice system in ways that would severely compromise it in several other aspects. Given the seemingly insurmountable hurdles, it's hard to see this as anything but a way to exploit vulnerable or fearful women to their own detriment. Especially when they'd previously co-opted the MeToo movement for their branding while suggesting women stock up on these "prior to being assaulted".
- MisterTea 6y ago
  There's no money to be made from justice.
- JoeyBananas 6y ago
  This is a weak argument because those goals are not mutually exclusive
- DanBC 6y ago
  For most cases of rape there's no doubt that the accused and the victim had sex. There victim says it wasn't consensual, but the accused says it was. Rape kits provide no useful information in these cases.
TeaDrunk 6y ago
This is a tweet thread covering the risks of a tech startup that has raised money in the effort to disrupt rape kits, most specifically having previously called itself MeToo Kits and rebranding to Leda Health. The tweet thread explains that the DIY rape kits are likely doing more harm than good, partially because these rape kits don't have the documentation of who owned the kid when and where that a rape kit at a hospital would have and therefore may not be admissible in court.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
justinlilly 6y ago
Admissibility in court feels like the barest minimum of requirements here, to say nothing of the other services like counceling the linked thread discusses.
- candiodari 6y ago
  Yes, but having the option to admit this in court, including of course the choice to NOT admit it, to stop all proceedings, in the justice system and/or court seems equally the barest minimum of requirements. Including the option to deny anything happened everywhere. To avoid and/or dealing with counceling (or God forbid, CPS. There's plenty of children and adults who are terrified of dealing with any official at all because of their experiences with CPS. They, frankly, have good reason). That's the requirement that I think this private rape kit does better than the official one.
  - glaive123 6y ago
    Except DIY kits are not an option to admit in court. They are not admissible. There is a temporary order allowing them to be collected during COVID-19 in California only. It is yet to see if these will even hold up.
    - candiodari 6y ago
      None of that matters in civil proceedings, like divorce or child custody hearings. Even pictures of Facebook chats are admissible there. If those are more important to you (even if they're not happening yet), I would still understand the choice to go for these. Furthermore, admissible only matters to a limited extent. It means someone won't go to jail based on this evidence alone. It doesn't mean it doesn't get considered at all. Even then, there's hacks, you could have someone from the company testify to the results of the kit and what the results mean, for example. Using these kids deprives the government and public prosecutor of many options and places a lot of power with the individual. That weakens the case, but that may be a good trade for people. I'm not sure giving people extra options between keeping silent and going full-on nuclear with zero control and uncertain result (the government route) is such a bad thing. I can also see why a person with this job (and the conviction that makes one take a job like this) would consider it a terrible thing.
thedudeabides5 6y ago
At home kits have been admitted to courts in California. The tweets claiming these kits are inadmissible is false. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/04/9727395/rape-kit-at-home-california-nurses-sexual-assault-help https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/04/9727395/rape-kit-at... A judge determines what's admissible in a court of law. That's why your texts, social media posts, etc are all admissable. The companies in this space are not trying to fool anyone into not going into the hospital. They are trying to help serve the 80%+ of survivors that never go to the official system.
- decker 6y ago
  The article doesn't say anything about the sample being admitted in a CA court, it only quotes a DA being supportive of the home test kit.
- nivethan 6y ago
  This is with a cop parked outside and a nurse over a zoom call. These kits are being used as a last resort in the middle of a pandemic. Chain of custody looks to be a problem and it is mentioned in the article.
- jj345 6y ago
  Lawyer confirming this. Best and well known example of similar evidence would be Monica Lewinsky’s black gap dress.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    With Monica’s famous dress CoC isn’t an issue because the CoC of the dress once submitted can be preserved anything before that isn’t important because if it is semen and it’s Bills then Bill needs to have a plausible explanation on how it got onto the dress in a manner that didn’t involve the stroking of his cigar. With these kits there is no way to validate that the evidence was actually collected from the victim and not from say a toothbrush. Monica’s dress in this case is well the victims vagina or any other body part that was assaulted and may contain DNA evidence of the assailant not the kit.
- 6y ago
hundchenkatze 6y ago
Here's some additional reporting on this: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/diy-remote-rape-kit-coronavirus/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/diy-remote-rape...
jj345 6y ago
Anytime I see a Twitter post by a dude coming after women...especially something like this my eyes roll out of my head. Cool. Another hit piece on female founders. Never seen those before.
knowthevibes 6y ago
Immoral to give survivors options other than the largely unused hospital and law enforcement processes? Any sexual assault counselor should know that survivors most often do not want to be re-traumatized through being physically manipulated by another individual. If COVID-19 has shown us anything, it is that remote options ARE feasible. Self-use kits were used in Monterey and Marin counties in California out of necessity (https://www.ksbw.com/article/monterey-county-das-office-allowing-victims-self-administer-rape-kits-at-home/32165425 https://www.ksbw.com/article/monterey-county-das-office-allo...), and necessity breeds widely used innovation. It would make sense to die on this hill if the current system was survivor-centric. But it is not. You’re putting far too much faith in a system built to reflect and serve the interests of law enforcement and hospitals, not the needs of survivors. Moreover, further research will show you that the startup explicitly encourages survivors to visit a hospital or contact law enforcement if at all possible. Not only is your information outdated, but it is also misleading. Try keeping your personal value statements (and your baseless interpretation of criminal law?) out of the conversation. Ask sexual assault survivors what they would like to see instead.
- glaive123 6y ago
  It's interesting to see the only comments defending this startup are from newly created accounts. The article you shared appears to conflict with what this startup is offering. > It's being called a "temporary protocol" that so far, has only been used once on April 5. Nassoura said the process starts by the victim calling law enforcement and then, "The officer goes to the victim's residence, places it (the sexual assault test) on the front door step, waits in the vehicle. The victim then goes to the front door gets the sample and they begin a zoom video call." That zoom video call involves a forensic nurse, the detective and a victim advocate. Once the victim's statement is taken by the officer, the nurse is the only one that remains on the call. The victim then self-collects the sample under the nurse's guidance and direction. And to your point: > Moreover, further research will show you that the startup explicitly encourages survivors to visit a hospital or contact law enforcement if at all possible. The problem is, this startup's business model specifically relies on victims not visiting the hospital. > Ask sexual assault survivors what they would like to see instead. They would probably want their evidence to be admitted in court, rather than raise reasonable doubt.
varajelle 6y ago
> An Immoral, DIY Rape Kit Startup I read the title as there was a startup selling kits for DIY rape. Pretty immoral indeed. I was just wondering what's in the kit.

63 points by owens99 6y ago

Rather than a “rape kit start up,” which is a really awful phrase to use, why don’t we process all of the backlog rape kits that are sitting in the evidence lockers across the country, first.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
http://www.endthebacklog.org http://www.endthebacklog.org Founded by Mariska Hargitay of “Law and Order: SVU” fame.
oh_sigh 6y ago
Because the startup is basically just a few people who believe in the idea, whereas the backlog of rape kids is a problem distributed over the entire country through the institutional neglect of thousands of people? If the two people who founded this startup were going to take your advice - how would they do it? Just send a check to crime labs all over the country and hope they process the kit? Start a letter writing campaign?
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Doing it as a startup means you’re out of touch, don’t appreciate the scale of the problem and the work involved, and the risk you put survivors in of not being able to get justice. This is a policy and legal challenge, not a business.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    Okay - so let's cancel the startup that these two people are doing. How should they best see the changes they think need to happen?
  - e6fuehere 6y ago
    Why can't it be both? The tweets and comments like yours come off as wildly tone deaf to me. The system is failing people /now/ and there are people trying to provide a supplemental solution to that failing. If startups like this are so problematic then the answer should be rendering them irrelevant not demonizing their efforts. Give victims something better instead of fighting to limit competing options. If the diy kits end up failing to demonstrate legal merit then it's not like they'll be especially in-demand anyway.
    - nucleardog 6y ago
      > The system is failing people /now/ and there are people trying to provide a supplemental solution to that failing. Frankly, this sounds like typical Silicon Valley attitude applied totally inappropriately. "Just get a minimum product out, we'll figure out how to make it work later, or pivot to another market." That's fine if you're releasing the next todo list app. That's not fine if you're providing women rape kits that, for all intents and purposes a rape kit would be used for, are useless. This severely impacts people's lives at their absolute worst moments. You might give them the benefit of the doubt if there was even a remotely feasible path for this to be useful without a major rework of the justice system in ways that would severely compromise it in several other aspects. Given the seemingly insurmountable hurdles, it's hard to see this as anything but a way to exploit vulnerable or fearful women to their own detriment. Especially when they'd previously co-opted the MeToo movement for their branding while suggesting women stock up on these "prior to being assaulted".
MisterTea 6y ago
There's no money to be made from justice.
JoeyBananas 6y ago
This is a weak argument because those goals are not mutually exclusive
DanBC 6y ago
For most cases of rape there's no doubt that the accused and the victim had sex. There victim says it wasn't consensual, but the accused says it was. Rape kits provide no useful information in these cases.

TeaDrunk 6y ago

This is a tweet thread covering the risks of a tech startup that has raised money in the effort to disrupt rape kits, most specifically having previously called itself MeToo Kits and rebranding to Leda Health. The tweet thread explains that the DIY rape kits are likely doing more harm than good, partially because these rape kits don't have the documentation of who owned the kid when and where that a rape kit at a hospital would have and therefore may not be admissible in court.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

justinlilly 6y ago

Admissibility in court feels like the barest minimum of requirements here, to say nothing of the other services like counceling the linked thread discusses.

candiodari 6y ago
Yes, but having the option to admit this in court, including of course the choice to NOT admit it, to stop all proceedings, in the justice system and/or court seems equally the barest minimum of requirements. Including the option to deny anything happened everywhere. To avoid and/or dealing with counceling (or God forbid, CPS. There's plenty of children and adults who are terrified of dealing with any official at all because of their experiences with CPS. They, frankly, have good reason). That's the requirement that I think this private rape kit does better than the official one.
- glaive123 6y ago
  Except DIY kits are not an option to admit in court. They are not admissible. There is a temporary order allowing them to be collected during COVID-19 in California only. It is yet to see if these will even hold up.
  - candiodari 6y ago
    None of that matters in civil proceedings, like divorce or child custody hearings. Even pictures of Facebook chats are admissible there. If those are more important to you (even if they're not happening yet), I would still understand the choice to go for these. Furthermore, admissible only matters to a limited extent. It means someone won't go to jail based on this evidence alone. It doesn't mean it doesn't get considered at all. Even then, there's hacks, you could have someone from the company testify to the results of the kit and what the results mean, for example. Using these kids deprives the government and public prosecutor of many options and places a lot of power with the individual. That weakens the case, but that may be a good trade for people. I'm not sure giving people extra options between keeping silent and going full-on nuclear with zero control and uncertain result (the government route) is such a bad thing. I can also see why a person with this job (and the conviction that makes one take a job like this) would consider it a terrible thing.

thedudeabides5 6y ago

At home kits have been admitted to courts in California. The tweets claiming these kits are inadmissible is false. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/04/9727395/rape-kit-at-home-california-nurses-sexual-assault-help https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/04/9727395/rape-kit-at... A judge determines what's admissible in a court of law. That's why your texts, social media posts, etc are all admissable. The companies in this space are not trying to fool anyone into not going into the hospital. They are trying to help serve the 80%+ of survivors that never go to the official system.

decker 6y ago
The article doesn't say anything about the sample being admitted in a CA court, it only quotes a DA being supportive of the home test kit.
nivethan 6y ago
This is with a cop parked outside and a nurse over a zoom call. These kits are being used as a last resort in the middle of a pandemic. Chain of custody looks to be a problem and it is mentioned in the article.
jj345 6y ago
Lawyer confirming this. Best and well known example of similar evidence would be Monica Lewinsky’s black gap dress.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  With Monica’s famous dress CoC isn’t an issue because the CoC of the dress once submitted can be preserved anything before that isn’t important because if it is semen and it’s Bills then Bill needs to have a plausible explanation on how it got onto the dress in a manner that didn’t involve the stroking of his cigar. With these kits there is no way to validate that the evidence was actually collected from the victim and not from say a toothbrush. Monica’s dress in this case is well the victims vagina or any other body part that was assaulted and may contain DNA evidence of the assailant not the kit.
6y ago

hundchenkatze 6y ago

Here's some additional reporting on this: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/diy-remote-rape-kit-coronavirus/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/diy-remote-rape...

jj345 6y ago

Anytime I see a Twitter post by a dude coming after women...especially something like this my eyes roll out of my head. Cool. Another hit piece on female founders. Never seen those before.

knowthevibes 6y ago

Immoral to give survivors options other than the largely unused hospital and law enforcement processes? Any sexual assault counselor should know that survivors most often do not want to be re-traumatized through being physically manipulated by another individual. If COVID-19 has shown us anything, it is that remote options ARE feasible. Self-use kits were used in Monterey and Marin counties in California out of necessity (https://www.ksbw.com/article/monterey-county-das-office-allowing-victims-self-administer-rape-kits-at-home/32165425 https://www.ksbw.com/article/monterey-county-das-office-allo...), and necessity breeds widely used innovation. It would make sense to die on this hill if the current system was survivor-centric. But it is not. You’re putting far too much faith in a system built to reflect and serve the interests of law enforcement and hospitals, not the needs of survivors. Moreover, further research will show you that the startup explicitly encourages survivors to visit a hospital or contact law enforcement if at all possible. Not only is your information outdated, but it is also misleading. Try keeping your personal value statements (and your baseless interpretation of criminal law?) out of the conversation. Ask sexual assault survivors what they would like to see instead.

glaive123 6y ago
It's interesting to see the only comments defending this startup are from newly created accounts. The article you shared appears to conflict with what this startup is offering. > It's being called a "temporary protocol" that so far, has only been used once on April 5. Nassoura said the process starts by the victim calling law enforcement and then, "The officer goes to the victim's residence, places it (the sexual assault test) on the front door step, waits in the vehicle. The victim then goes to the front door gets the sample and they begin a zoom video call." That zoom video call involves a forensic nurse, the detective and a victim advocate. Once the victim's statement is taken by the officer, the nurse is the only one that remains on the call. The victim then self-collects the sample under the nurse's guidance and direction. And to your point: > Moreover, further research will show you that the startup explicitly encourages survivors to visit a hospital or contact law enforcement if at all possible. The problem is, this startup's business model specifically relies on victims not visiting the hospital. > Ask sexual assault survivors what they would like to see instead. They would probably want their evidence to be admitted in court, rather than raise reasonable doubt.

varajelle 6y ago

> An Immoral, DIY Rape Kit Startup I read the title as there was a startup selling kits for DIY rape. Pretty immoral indeed. I was just wondering what's in the kit.