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> I share the common emotion that this is awful and shouldn't happen, but I have trouble justifying it intellectually. Incentives. The justification would be

> I share the common emotion that this is awful and shouldn't happen, but I have trouble justifying it intellectually. Incentives. The justification would be that sexual assault is a serious crime that goes underreported. If victims are afraid to come forward because they fear arrest for other, pettier offenses, then predators are even more likely to escape justice and commit more assaults.

xapata 4y ago
> pettier offenses Really, any offenses. We could imagine that there's some method for abusing a policy of disallowing use of a victim's evidence to prosecute that victim for unrelated crimes, but until it happens, it's reasonable to ignore that possibility.
- listless 4y ago
  The most shocking thing in this article is that SF actually prosecuted a retail theft case and went so far as to get DNA? This is not the SF Fox News has been telling me about.
  - olivermarks 4y ago
    It was arguably one of ex DA Boudin's stunts to make 'the system' look bad. Boudin was on life support pre recall at this point in history and found the SFPD dna evidence issue which was a questionable use case of that data at best. The woman had been arrested on suspicion of a felony property crime, with police identifying her based on rape-kit evidence she gave as a victim, part of a giant San Francisco only dna data bank her data was in and she matched to. Given how incredibly hard Boudin made it for what is left of the SFPD to prevent crime this is one of those 'everyone loses' current realities
    - braingenious 4y ago
      It’s fascinating how people will contort their brains to make every obviously shitty thing that SFPD does somehow the fault of their political boogeyman. Can you point out the evidence that Boudin instructed the SFPD to use DNA evidence in the investigation of retail theft? Like is there a memo from the DA saying “I, Chesa Boudin, instruct you to collect DNA evidence for retail thefts, and make sure to mash the rape victim database up with the criminal database!” I have never seen a group so fervently pro-police on this site as the pro-SFPD group (and I do not mean the anti-Boudin group, I mean the group that is critical of anyone that doesn’t tow the “poor SFPD, we would live in a utopia if only they had unlimited power” line.) edit: Typos
      - olivermarks 4y ago
        I was saying quite the opposite to 'Boudin instructed the SFPD to use DNA evidence in the investigation of retail theft'. What I actually attempted to say was the SFPD's questionable use of dna data was seized on by Boudin who was fighting for his political life at this point and amplified it as a weapon vs the SFPD. We all lose because rape kit dna shouldn't be in the pool of felon dna data, the police were being impeded by Boudin at every turn resulting in inappropriate policing methods to try and get a federal case through. The streets of San Francisco are no longer safe for anyone as a result of this fiasco with the SFPD understaffed and relunctant to do much for fear of being on the wrong side of criminal advocate activists legal challenges....
        braingenious 4y ago
        > Boudin at every turn resulting in inappropriate policing methods to try and get a federal case through. Your point is that the lack of evidence that Boudin was involved in this is the proof that this is his fault? Is there any scenario where anything SFPD does that’s shitty isn’t his fault? Edit: When were the streets of San Francisco “safe” exactly? I wasn’t there during this horrible period between 2020 and 2022 but in 72 hours in SF a few years back: -I saw people buying oxy from a guy in a tent, about ten feet from an occupied parked cop car -About eight guys “running a train” (taking turns having penetrative sex) with a woman in an alley whilst they all smoked crack -A woman taking a shit out of the window of a moving bus -I was chased by a homeless man for five blocks because I only gave him a dollar and he kept demanding “more” -I was forced to accept a dvd of truly depraved pornography at a bus stop -I saw an adult shop openly selling cocaine -Countless people shitting on the street Does Chesa Boudin have a time machine? It sounds like I experienced exactly what the SFPD superfans say he caused. Edit 2: This was during Garcon’s tenure.
  - candiodari 4y ago
    Unless this is the police just grasping at straws to arrest someone and DNA evidence provided some link (no-one identified her at the scene), which is just wrong, the police knows it, but they have a connection and thus, maybe, a conviction ...
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  That seems wild to me. What are the limitations to this and what is special about DNA. If someone makes a police report for rape and their ID comes back as wanted for murder, should the police look the other way as to not disincentivize rape reports?
  - xapata 4y ago
    Perhaps so. Let's let that happen first, before we debate it. Oh, and there's nothing special about DNA in this respect. It just happens to be something collected during a rape investigation.
pfdietz 4y ago
You're right, that's a concern. The solution is to get everyone in the DNA database beforehand so there's no marginal cost of getting swabbed with a rape kit.
- zaroth 4y ago
  Totalitarianism is always a solution, it’s just also always the wrong solution.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    That's true, but it isn't relevant to the comment you are responding to. I'm getting strong Godwin's Law vibes from your response, btw.
    - manicdee 4y ago
      Godwin’s law doesn’t apply when talking about actual Nazis. Pre-collecting DNA from everyone to use as evidence against them in future criminal investigations is way over the line when it comes to “is this behaviour totalitarian or fascist”. Using DNA from a rape kit to identify someone in a crime is a clear violation of the 5th amendment. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
      - MichaelZuo 4y ago
        If the people vote for the government to collect everyone’s DNA at some future point in time, that’s just how a democracy works. Freedom and liberty includes the freedom and liberty to make poor decisions.
        zaroth 4y ago
        A democracy without the guardrails of a constitution can absolutely slip into totalitarianism thru entirely democratic means. The majority vote can be rallied through fear and propaganda into vesting ever greater authority in a centralized seat of power, with any opposition vilified as an existential threat. The only way democracy survives is through a watchful and untrusting populace that constantly holds its government to account and seeks to limit its power and pervasive reach into the lives of the citizenry. Freedom and liberty require at its core the ability to dissent. Dissent in turn requires privacy because dissent by its very nature will be suppressed by those in power. I would theorize that mandatory en masse DNA cataloging is anathema to democracy because it inevitably is far too powerful a tool to suppress dissent.
Spivak 4y ago
This is why if you've ever been to a music festival they make it absolutely explicitly clear that you can go to the on-site paramedics for anything and they won't incriminate you. Putting someone in a position where they have to weigh the risk of ODing verses a life-ruining jail sentence is how you end up with people dead.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  I've been to plenty of music festivals and never heard of this. Are you suggesting if I show up clutching a knife, bathed in human blood and covered in entrails that I'm not going to be incriminated for anything?
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    Not literally anything. In the context of festivals, this probably means "illegal drug activities". Did you really wonder if they meant "looking like a murderer is fine" or are you trolling?
    - spoils19 4y ago
      I think it's important to be clear and concise when discussing these things, otherwise people can easily get confused, like the poster. Keep in mind that some of us operate on rigidity and what may be obvious to you is not obvious to others.
      - braingenious 4y ago
        By “us” do you mean that you also thought that this meant that medical tents at music festivals would provide cover for murder?
  - braingenious 4y ago
    What if you showed up carrying a corpse with “I was murdered by the person carrying me” carved into their chest? What if you showed up with a bomb vest? Or showed up in a stolen military helicopter? I’m not sure what the value is of these very obvious cases where common sense dictates that there is a plain and obvious limitation to this policy. The point is obviously to limit harm that people do to themselves and one another, not to function as some sort of philosophical thought experiment made concrete. What is the purpose of this “what about”?

xapata 4y ago

> pettier offenses Really, any offenses. We could imagine that there's some method for abusing a policy of disallowing use of a victim's evidence to prosecute that victim for unrelated crimes, but until it happens, it's reasonable to ignore that possibility.

listless 4y ago
The most shocking thing in this article is that SF actually prosecuted a retail theft case and went so far as to get DNA? This is not the SF Fox News has been telling me about.
- olivermarks 4y ago
  It was arguably one of ex DA Boudin's stunts to make 'the system' look bad. Boudin was on life support pre recall at this point in history and found the SFPD dna evidence issue which was a questionable use case of that data at best. The woman had been arrested on suspicion of a felony property crime, with police identifying her based on rape-kit evidence she gave as a victim, part of a giant San Francisco only dna data bank her data was in and she matched to. Given how incredibly hard Boudin made it for what is left of the SFPD to prevent crime this is one of those 'everyone loses' current realities
  - braingenious 4y ago
    It’s fascinating how people will contort their brains to make every obviously shitty thing that SFPD does somehow the fault of their political boogeyman. Can you point out the evidence that Boudin instructed the SFPD to use DNA evidence in the investigation of retail theft? Like is there a memo from the DA saying “I, Chesa Boudin, instruct you to collect DNA evidence for retail thefts, and make sure to mash the rape victim database up with the criminal database!” I have never seen a group so fervently pro-police on this site as the pro-SFPD group (and I do not mean the anti-Boudin group, I mean the group that is critical of anyone that doesn’t tow the “poor SFPD, we would live in a utopia if only they had unlimited power” line.) edit: Typos
    - olivermarks 4y ago
      I was saying quite the opposite to 'Boudin instructed the SFPD to use DNA evidence in the investigation of retail theft'. What I actually attempted to say was the SFPD's questionable use of dna data was seized on by Boudin who was fighting for his political life at this point and amplified it as a weapon vs the SFPD. We all lose because rape kit dna shouldn't be in the pool of felon dna data, the police were being impeded by Boudin at every turn resulting in inappropriate policing methods to try and get a federal case through. The streets of San Francisco are no longer safe for anyone as a result of this fiasco with the SFPD understaffed and relunctant to do much for fear of being on the wrong side of criminal advocate activists legal challenges....
      - braingenious 4y ago
        > Boudin at every turn resulting in inappropriate policing methods to try and get a federal case through. Your point is that the lack of evidence that Boudin was involved in this is the proof that this is his fault? Is there any scenario where anything SFPD does that’s shitty isn’t his fault? Edit: When were the streets of San Francisco “safe” exactly? I wasn’t there during this horrible period between 2020 and 2022 but in 72 hours in SF a few years back: -I saw people buying oxy from a guy in a tent, about ten feet from an occupied parked cop car -About eight guys “running a train” (taking turns having penetrative sex) with a woman in an alley whilst they all smoked crack -A woman taking a shit out of the window of a moving bus -I was chased by a homeless man for five blocks because I only gave him a dollar and he kept demanding “more” -I was forced to accept a dvd of truly depraved pornography at a bus stop -I saw an adult shop openly selling cocaine -Countless people shitting on the street Does Chesa Boudin have a time machine? It sounds like I experienced exactly what the SFPD superfans say he caused. Edit 2: This was during Garcon’s tenure.
- candiodari 4y ago
  Unless this is the police just grasping at straws to arrest someone and DNA evidence provided some link (no-one identified her at the scene), which is just wrong, the police knows it, but they have a connection and thus, maybe, a conviction ...
s1artibartfast 4y ago
That seems wild to me. What are the limitations to this and what is special about DNA. If someone makes a police report for rape and their ID comes back as wanted for murder, should the police look the other way as to not disincentivize rape reports?
- xapata 4y ago
  Perhaps so. Let's let that happen first, before we debate it. Oh, and there's nothing special about DNA in this respect. It just happens to be something collected during a rape investigation.

pfdietz 4y ago

You're right, that's a concern. The solution is to get everyone in the DNA database beforehand so there's no marginal cost of getting swabbed with a rape kit.

zaroth 4y ago
Totalitarianism is always a solution, it’s just also always the wrong solution.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  That's true, but it isn't relevant to the comment you are responding to. I'm getting strong Godwin's Law vibes from your response, btw.
  - manicdee 4y ago
    Godwin’s law doesn’t apply when talking about actual Nazis. Pre-collecting DNA from everyone to use as evidence against them in future criminal investigations is way over the line when it comes to “is this behaviour totalitarian or fascist”. Using DNA from a rape kit to identify someone in a crime is a clear violation of the 5th amendment. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      If the people vote for the government to collect everyone’s DNA at some future point in time, that’s just how a democracy works. Freedom and liberty includes the freedom and liberty to make poor decisions.
      - zaroth 4y ago
        A democracy without the guardrails of a constitution can absolutely slip into totalitarianism thru entirely democratic means. The majority vote can be rallied through fear and propaganda into vesting ever greater authority in a centralized seat of power, with any opposition vilified as an existential threat. The only way democracy survives is through a watchful and untrusting populace that constantly holds its government to account and seeks to limit its power and pervasive reach into the lives of the citizenry. Freedom and liberty require at its core the ability to dissent. Dissent in turn requires privacy because dissent by its very nature will be suppressed by those in power. I would theorize that mandatory en masse DNA cataloging is anathema to democracy because it inevitably is far too powerful a tool to suppress dissent.

Spivak 4y ago

This is why if you've ever been to a music festival they make it absolutely explicitly clear that you can go to the on-site paramedics for anything and they won't incriminate you. Putting someone in a position where they have to weigh the risk of ODing verses a life-ruining jail sentence is how you end up with people dead.

sidewndr46 4y ago
I've been to plenty of music festivals and never heard of this. Are you suggesting if I show up clutching a knife, bathed in human blood and covered in entrails that I'm not going to be incriminated for anything?
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  Not literally anything. In the context of festivals, this probably means "illegal drug activities". Did you really wonder if they meant "looking like a murderer is fine" or are you trolling?
  - spoils19 4y ago
    I think it's important to be clear and concise when discussing these things, otherwise people can easily get confused, like the poster. Keep in mind that some of us operate on rigidity and what may be obvious to you is not obvious to others.
    - braingenious 4y ago
      By “us” do you mean that you also thought that this meant that medical tents at music festivals would provide cover for murder?
- braingenious 4y ago
  What if you showed up carrying a corpse with “I was murdered by the person carrying me” carved into their chest? What if you showed up with a bomb vest? Or showed up in a stolen military helicopter? I’m not sure what the value is of these very obvious cases where common sense dictates that there is a plain and obvious limitation to this policy. The point is obviously to limit harm that people do to themselves and one another, not to function as some sort of philosophical thought experiment made concrete. What is the purpose of this “what about”?