Vice President Biden Pledges $41 Million to Clear Rape Kit Backlog

[niyad]

(can just hear the pukes screaming now)


Vice President Biden Pledges $41 Million to Clear Rape Kit Backlog

Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Mikulski (D-MD) spoke yesterday at a Maryland State Police Laboratory to declare their support for a $41 million budget proposal to combat the national backlog of rape kits.


“Testing rape kits should be an absolute priority for the United States of America,” Vice President Biden said, referring to the estimated 400,000 untested rape kits nationwide. “If we’re able to test these rape kits, more crimes would be solved, more rapes would be avoided.”

“We applaud this budget as the first step in ensuring that survivors who courageously report these heinous crimes can finally obtain justice,” said Gaylynn Burroughs, Director of Policy and Research at the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Houston, Texas is testament to the progress that can be achieved when cities have access to the funds for processing rape kits. Houston was one of the first of the major cities nation-wide to clear their backlog of over 6,000 untested rape kits - some of which were more than thirty years old. As of last month, the evidence from these test kits has led to 850 DNA matches, 29 filed cases, and 6 convictions. The $41 million budget is designed to both clear and process the backlog of rape kits, but also to create a more efficient process for testing, so as to avoid more backlogs in the future.

http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2015/03/17/vice-president-biden-pledges-41-million-to-clear-rape-kit-backlog/

[yeoman6987]

1. Well nice gesture but he is just asking Congress to

Allocate the money. He can't promise anything. The article title is nonsense once again.

[niyad]

5. "article title is nonsense once again"? to what other titles are you referring?

[yeoman6987]

7. Too many to mention

So many times the article titles are nothing close to what is in the article. The most recent had to do with the police shootings where the article mentioned the shooter was a demonstrator only to read the article and it says that the shooter was in the area but nobody saw him before and was not part of the demonstration. Just that type of thing.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

8. It is very common.

And not necessarily politically motivated. Revenue is made by clicks/page views. So very often a title will be misleading to get more clicks.

[BainsBane]

26. Astoundingly, Niyad's concern is with justice for rapists

and rights for their victims, not revenue for this site.

I find it amazing that it's always the threads about rape and women's rights that get shit all over, while the rest of the self serving cant is ignored.

[Brickbat]

2. Aw hell, I was kind of hoping this was out of his own pocket.

[niyad]

6. why out of his pocket? he isn't the one responsible for the nationwide backlog.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. Ah, He sort of is.

Like I said, as one of the senate's biggest long time boosters of the drug war, our law enforcement priorities as they stand now are at least somewhat his fault.

[BainsBane]

27. A thread about justice for rape victims

and several people have to come in to disrupt it, to make it about anything but justice for rape victims.

[Warren DeMontague]

40. It's not "disruption". It's a fairly clear case of law enforcement priorities.

And I'm not the only one who has noticed:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-piper/rape-kit-backlog_b_5504287.html

I would think that would be something everyone here could agree on, but I guess not. I guess the lack of money for processing those rape kits has nothing to do with the 60 Billion we spend every year arresting people for smoking weed.

[BainsBane]

41. No, pretty obviously they don't

Or they wouldn't insist on making threads about something else. It has nothing to do with money. It's about priorities, the same priorities we see demonstrated when people insist on making a thread about rape into something they consider really important, like weed.

We have 100 people arguing an accused rapist should escape justice. We had another with someone arguing that a 16yr old shouldn't face jail time for gang rape and have his life ruined 'for nothing." And then we have this thread: some people taking issue at the headline, their views about the VP (as if anyone gives a shit), and you, insisting on making this about something really important--weed--rather than the right of women and rape victims more generally to see justice for violent crimes committed against them.

It is pretty clear we do not all agree that rape victms deserve justice. Not even close. I was just told I was bought by Karl Rove for insisting that all rape victims who make a legal accusation deserve to have their case brought to justice, and that no one should be above the law.

[Warren DeMontague]

42. Well, I happen to think that the past 30 years of law enforcement priorities are directly

Relevant to the topic at hand.

And VP Biden, as a prime Senatorial driver of the drug war, has been a part of that process.

i support all of our leadership re-evaluating their priorities on many things, even when it is long overdue. But I do not believe these items occur in a vacuum. Elsewhere on DU I am supposed to believe that cialis commercials are responsible for the GOP war on contraceptive coverage. i think that connection is more spurious than the idea that the over-funded drug war has a relationship to under-funded rape kit processing.

If you don't want to hear my opinion, put me on ignore. Otherwise, I dont know what to tell you.

[BainsBane]

44. How about you make your own OP?

Rather than taking over another thread on a different discussion? Naturally the concerns of the original poster or the subject of the OP are meaningless compared to your determination to control the discussion and make it about you and your agenda. Because how could the basic human rights of half the population compare to your entitlement? How ridiculous of me to suggest anything else could possibly matter.

I don't believe things occur in a vacuum either. The low priority placed on prosecuting violence against women is evidenced by how people everywhere--not just the big bad GOP--respond to discussions of rape. Of course men too are raped, but those who find such discussions unacceptable rarely think of that. Here we have first hand evidence of the problem of priorities, while refuting your very claim that "we all agree." Clearly you think it too unimportant to even allow a discussion to proceed on the subject. Thanks to you and a few others in this thread, we have a first hand demonstration of the problem.

[Warren DeMontague]

46. I'm not "taking it over". It's a thread about law enforcement priorities and funding.

Seems to me, then, priorities and funding are very much on topic.

How you get from there to "finding such discussions unacceptable"... that's another ludicrous strawman you've conjured up from your considerable barnyard full of the stuff.

If it bothers you that much that I'm saying what I'm saying, instead of saying what you want me to say, why don't you invent a firefox plugin that replaces the words of other people on your screen, with your own?

Okay, maybe we don't agree that government should put rapists in prison instead of pot smokers. I would think "we" would, but who knows.

[Brickbat]

15. Because of the way the headline was written.

[IronLionZion]

17. He's actually one of the less wealthy national politicians

I think when he was in the Senate only Bernie Sanders had less personal wealth

[Nye Bevan]

18. A good sign of integrity and honesty.

You have to wonder about politicians who somehow amass tens of millions of dollars of wealth while never officially earning more than the low six figures in salary.

[jberryhill]

38. That still amazes me

If they aren't wealthy on the way in, they sure seem to figure out how to get there pretty quickly.

[shenmue]

3. Time for justice

At least some cases can be completed now.

[niyad]

4. true. but how many people have suffered because women are just not a high enough

priority for the system to actually do its work?

[shenmue]

9. I know

It is so infuriating.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Here is something I think Vice President Biden ought to read:

Thousands of Rapists Are Not Behind Bars Because Cops Focus on Marijuana Users

Unfortunately Biden has a long history of being an enthusiastic drug warrior, like his inane RAVE act that made any promoter who put on a rock concert where someone in the audience smoked a joint (but, really, how often does that happen) a felon subject to a 50 year mandatory minimum sentence.

[niyad]

20. thank you for a most excellent article.

[hrmjustin]

12. K&R! It is a horrific that these backlogs exist. n/t.

[niyad]

21. it is indeed. proof, once again, that women simply do not count, despite our being told over

and over again that there is NO war on women.

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. excellent

[F4lconF16]

14. Wait, this is only a proposal?

Damn. I hope they pass it.

[niyad]

22. a repuke congress passing this law? please don't hold your breath.

[madokie]

16. Yes to this

There should never have been a back log to begin with and now that we know there is we need to do exactly what is being said there.

[niyad]

19. I know. we have heard all the excuses--it costs too much, the tests are too complicated, blah

blah, blah. because women are just not important enough to spend the money on for this horrendous crime.

[seabeyond]

23. incredible. 41 million you say? wow. that is a lot. hm. not like we have not been having this

conversation for a good five years. the results of not running these tests. how it affects society and so much more, like the figgun rape numbers the mra says, we should be cheering because rape is now almost, nonexistent.

yea biden.

now we have to get the patriarchal, male mentality, police force and higher ups to actually use the money to run the damn tests, money in hand.

[niyad]

24. exactly. and perhaps to run more than one a week, or whatever some of these places seem to

be doing. but, as long as women don't count, I don't count on the money actually being spent, and the tests run, in a timely manner (even assuming those damned women-hating pukes would actually pass this bill).

[seabeyond]

25. ya. i am with you. yesterday seeing du as a board of excuse for rape, empathizing with rapist,

jokes on tshirts, frats FB page.... of UNCONSCIOUS naked girls.

rah....

nothing to see here. women, shut the fuck up.

lay the fuck down and enjoy the inevitable.

we got one say rape a nothing, off du.

this is a fuckin progressive board, what does that say about the rest of the world, we deal with.

i am a changed person after actually experiencing an abortion clinic and walking with a woman thru it. then i listen to these fucks that dismiss rape. forced preg.

i pulled up in parking and a man came to my door. i look up ready to tear him a new one, as he approaches my door. then note... kindness, not hate. pulling in my reigns i say, ... friend or foe. cause i am ready for battle.

he says.... i am a nice one.

i had conversation with him thru the hours.... waiting, for a very simple LEGAL medical procedure. but at least out of state it is HOURS, instead of days.....

[niyad]

28. I am glad your friend was able to get her procedure.

did you see the crap justifying the rape of the 11 year old

[seabeyond]

33. perused the first statements in the thread, and walked away. nt

[niyad]

34. I should have done the same.

[seabeyond]

35. i had already read it in the gang rape of a 16 yr old girl, and a tshirt a boy was wearing laughing

about rape at our girls expense.

[niyad]

36. some of the responses on those threads have been beyond disgusting.

[seabeyond]

37. yes. they have. nt

[BainsBane]

29. And here again we see a thread about rape

is derailed so that a few can ensure we focus on what they want rather than justice for rape victims.

[niyad]

31. of course. we can't actually have a serious conversation focusing on women and rape--much more

important things to talk about.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

30. Hear! Hear!

And shame on Congress.

[niyad]

32. not holding my breath until such a thing passes.

[Inkfreak]

39. How is such a backlog allowed to exist??

That's crazy...all those women just sitting around waiting for "justice".

So there's money to militarize our police but not for solving crimes..wonderful.

[Warren DeMontague]

43. Yeah, good luck. I tried to answer that, but apparently it constituted "disruption" of the thread.

Apparently all law enforcement priority decisions happen in a complete vacuum, and if one mentions that our enforcement priorities for the past 30 years have been more focused on arresting non-violent drug criminals than rapists, then one doesn't give a shit about rape victims because... well, honestly it doesn't make any sense.



"How is such a backlog allowed to exist"? Hmmmmm. Clearly it's because of people on internet message boards who use bad words, that's how.


Seems legit.

It has nothing to do with actual spending of actual law enforcement dollars yakno yakno

[BainsBane]

45. You didn't try to answer or even discuss

You completely changed the subject. If society gave a shit about violence against women, they would make an effort to stop it. '

DOJ has begun to use Title IX to compell universities to take rape seriously, which has resulted in outrage from more than a few men that it violates their civil rights. Sweden is the country that takes rape most seriously, and we have people arguing against their efforts to prosecute rape. The drug war could end tomorrow, and nothing would change in regard to rape prosecution because too many prefer the status quo.

Making the thread about your pet subject--a subject that somehow you can't bother to write an OP about--does nothing to address the subject or the problem.

Even that poster didn't mention the fucking weed. He talked about police militarization, which is also aside from the point. Rape isn't prosecuted because 90 percent of rape victims are women and 99 percent of assailants men, and women are valued less.

ETA: I meant derail. If I said disrupt, that was in error.

[Warren DeMontague]

47. Again, in a thread about law enforcement funding and priorities, I would think funding/priorities

would BE on topic.

What would you like me to "answer or even discuss"? It's great that they are putting money into dealing with the backlog of rape kits. About time. Honestly, it should be more. $41 Million isn't that much money, in government terms... of course, were I to mention where some of that law enforcement $ could come from, given where billions and billions of it DO go... I guess I'd be 'derailing' again.