One of the biggest problems with policing here in the United States are the incentives given to departments. Solving violent crimes such as assaults, murders, and rapes aren’t profitable while arresting people for nonviolent acts such as possessing a rifle with a barrel that’s under an arbitrarily defined length, putting something into your body that’s not approved by the State, and using specific types of radios without first obtaining a license from the Fascist Communication Club Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are incredibly profitable. Needless to say these incentives mean departments put a ton of money and effort into things like the drug war while they can’t even be bothered to store evidence of rapes properly:
Mold was found growing on several hundred rape kits held in Austin police storage, according to a city memo.
As part of an audit of the 1,629 evidence kits stored in the refrigerator found that 849 of them showed some signs of mold on the outside.
The mold was discovered in April by Signature Science, an Austin company hired to help test the kits, which contained evidence collected in the 1990s.
The company told Assistant Police Chief Troy Gay on Friday that “there were no observable issues with any of the samples they processed with the case reported to have mold.”
I’m surprised they didn’t jump dump the rape kits in a dumpster. After all, the only reason they’re even bothering to process them now is because enough people flipped their shit that it was causing headaches for politicians.
Unfortunately, so long as the incentive system rewards enforcing laws against nonviolent activities over violent activities things will continue as they have been.