Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 March 16

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March 16

United States: rape kit backlog

Are there estimates available for the financial expenditure that would be required to catch up on the backlog on testing rape kits? Rich (talk) 08:35, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

To estimate the cost, we would need to know how many untested rape kits are left. The article on the rape kit seems outdated, but states than nobody is certain how many kits are involved in the back log:

• "The actual number of untested rape kits is undefined as of 2015 because there is no nationwide system set up to keep track of the cases."
• "Conservative estimates indicate there are 200,000–400,000 untested rape kits in U.S. police departments, and large stockpiles of kits have been documented in over five dozen jurisdictions, sometimes totaling more than 10,000 untested rape kits in a single city."
• "A 2016 HuffPost report stated that it was not uncommon for labs to dispose of untested kits, sometimes illegally, in Colorado, Kentucky and North Carolina. As of 2016, no U.S. state provides a right to retain a rape kit until the expiration of the statute of limitations, and only six states and Washington, D.C., provide a right for the prompt testing of a kit."
• Naturally, American voters seem happy that at least 400,000 rape cases will never be solved. There is no effort to create nationwide standards. Dimadick (talk) 14:17, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

You made two rather poor jumps. First, you state that there is an estimate of 200,000 to 400,000 untested rape kits and then continue with there being at least 400,000. Using your estimate, there is at most 400,000 and at least 200,000. Then, you claim that with an untested rape kit, the rape will never be solved. Rapes were solved very often before the invention of rape kits and continue to be solved without the use of rape kits. That should factor into your statements. If a rape is solved before the rape kit is tested, why test the rape kit when there are others that need to be tested? 75.136.148.8 (talk) 19:58, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

If it is solved, and a man convicted,,or at least blamed if he is deceased, without testing the rape kit, there is a chance of the man having been wrongly convicted, and the actual rapist free to rape again, especially since it is suspicious that the State doesn't want to test and possibly exonerate the convicted man.Rich (talk) 03:11, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes but that's not the only reason. See for example [1] "which can be instrumental in identifying offenders in previously unsolved crimes, confirming identify in known-offender assaults, discovering serial rapists, and exonerating individuals wrongly accused" or [2] "While it is widely understood that rape kits collected in stranger assailant cases should be analyzed for DNA evidence, some in law enforcement do not understand the value of testing rape kits from known perpetrator cases. We believe these must also be tested. Research shows serial rapists are more prominent than previously known, and they assault both acquaintances and strangers. In other words, a known rapist in one case could be an unknown in another case." While some states allow the DNA to be taken of anyone arrested [3] [4] and I assume some others after conviction, which might mean anyone successfully prosecuted will already be in the system. But this will depend on the state and I'm guessing sometimes even the specific police department. (If the state only allows it rather than requires it, individual departments might have their own rules.) There might also be rules about how long the profile can be kept depending on whether they are convicted and the crime they're convicted of. I assume alleged offender DNA from a rape kit can be kept indefinitely perhaps with the only exception being if there's no dispute over identity and they're not convicted. Note also, the sources tend to concentrate on known offender rather than solved even without DNA evidence. This seems to be because of the difference in how they're treated, the decision whether to test the kit might happen quite early after all. But highlights an important point. It might be the alleged known offender is never prosecuted because it's felt a conviction is unlikely especially if the victim is uncooperative, and so they might never be arrested. I imagine depending on the particulars and the jurisdiction, this case might be marked as some variety of 'solved'. Yet in this case, unless the alleged offender was arrested for something else, their DNA is probably never entering the system. But if it turns out they did commit some other crime where they left the DNA, testing the kit might help solve this crime. Indeed, since in the US it seems to often be quite easy to get admission of other offences into court; it might even mean a successful prosecution in the case the kit is for despite the DNA not confirming anything about the case not already known. While this isn't mention in the earlier sources that I noticed, at least in NZ there's also considered to be possible value in testing the kit beyond DNA like looking for type of cells found depending on the specifics of the case. [5] Nil Einne (talk) 13:25, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Having a ballpark figure of the backlog of several hundred thousand, the next questions are how much does it cost to test each rape kit, and how long does it take? And how many additional facilities and additional personnel would be needed?Rich (talk) 03:14, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Looking at multiple resources, the cost is $500-$1500 per kit and processing time is 8-16 hours per kit. What is the budget in dollars and hours allotted to process the kits? 12.116.29.106 (talk) 18:40, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

China

One non-American source said recently that the Chinese government introduced the "policy of rational nutrition." Does it mean that there a famine in China and they need to conserve resources? Thanks, AboutFace 22 (talk) 14:24, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Why would it? Given the emergence of a large affluent middle class in China, it's much more likely that people have a problem with overeating and obesity, and the government is trying to control that (as many Western governments do, with limited success). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:53, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

The 2022 Chinese Dietary Guidelines navigated the main trends in Chinese dietary structures, which in the past decades, have shifted from plant-based or plant-forward diets to whole-food diets. Although traditional plant-based diets are rich in dietary fiber, they are often deficient in animal food, dairy products, and fruits. With the continuous transformation of dietary structure, residents in some areas consume too much meat (especially pork) and oils. A striking decline in the consumption of coarse grains can be observed. The transition may lead to imbalanced nutrient intake and an increasing incidence of some chronic diseases, such as hypertension.

China is implementing the national nutrition plan of action. Alansplodge (talk) 22:14, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

My personal interpretation is that dematerialization, including of currency could play a role: "The transcendental philosopher requires a way to positively define transcendental matter" (DEMATERIALIZATION AND IMMATERIALIZATION, A Disputable Strategy). On the other hand, "irrational nutrition" is a subject at large, with some of the sources focusing on human fertility: in Bulgaria,at the MIT. --Askedonty (talk) 23:13, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Europe & the Global South

I am seeking insights into the primary challenge currently faced by Europe that also affects countries in the global south. Could you provide information on this issue and its broader impact? Thank you. Grotesquetruth (talk) 17:34, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Global warming is certainly a candidate. --Wrongfilter (talk) 17:39, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

One perennial issue is the negative effects which EU-internal agricultural subsidies have on trade between EU countries and third-world countries. The Doha Development Round bogged down largely due to this issue... AnonMoos (talk) 12:10, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Romania leaking Operation Barbarossa

Romania in World War II says:

The new regime officially joined the Axis powers on 23 November 1940. As a member of the Axis, Romania joined the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) on 22 June 1941

I was watching this video[6] that seem to imply that Romania in 1940 was given some type of advance knowledge of a future invasion of the USSR.

1. Is this actually the case? Is there any surviving official communication or secret treaty protocol regarding this?

2. If true, did Romania or its leaders leak this information to any other nation? OptoFidelty (talk) 18:42, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

The Soviet Union attacked Romania before WWII and annexed Bessarabia, it makes it unlikely that Romanians had a motivation to help Stalin. However, the preparations for the invasion were widely known in countries bordering the Soviet Union. Winston Churchill had rather detailed information about Hitler's plans and he did warn Stalin. Stalin however, trusted Hitler more. Stalin also had information from his own Intelligence. German military planes flied over the Soviet territory. His own top military and Intelligence people warned him. Some German soldiers defected from the German Army and warned Soviet military intelligewnce. Stalin still did not believe anybody. He trusted Hitler. The country paid dearly for his mistakes. AboutFace 22 (talk) 20:36, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Churchill had access to Ultra information from Enigma decrypts, but was not about to inform Stalin of this. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:05, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Stalin was warned by the British (obviously not revealing the source) but he was convinced it was a cunning plot to get him to attack the Germans. See Stalin ignores warnings of invasion. Alansplodge (talk) 21:23, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Stalin received more than enough information from various sources (including his own spies) that his failure to take certain basic precautions (such as pulling Soviet troops away from the German-Soviet line of control, so that they would be less exposed to initial attacks) reflects highly negatively on him, as does the fact that he had some kind of nervous breakdown right after the attacks, which semi-immobilized the whole Soviet system (which Stalin had spent 15 years making sure was highly-centralized and dependent on his own personal will) at an extremely inopportune moment. I realize that many Soviet people underwent great suffering before the Soviet Union was able to push back the Nazis, but these facts, combined with the fact that Stalin sometimes fought WW2 in a kind of stupid manner which set very little value on human life, the Soviet Union's vicious maltreatment of returning Soviet soldiers who had been held as prisoners of war, and his various pre-1941 immoralities -- his huge purge of the Soviet army officer corps in 1937-1938, his invading and annexing the Baltics and a large part of Poland by agreement with Hitler and severely repressing the population there (the Katyn massacre and deporting significant fractions of the populations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia to Central Asia or Siberia) -- all together means that today's Russian May 9th jingoistic chauvinism nauseates me... AnonMoos (talk) 19:56, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Stalin trusted nobody, not Churchill, not Hitler, not his own generals. And a strategy that wasn't optimal for the Soviet Union wasn't necessarily bad for Stalin. Wasting soldiers' lives to prevent a military coup is a Russian habit that goes on even today.

Playing for time made sense, apart from the huge number of fatalities (that Stalin didn't care about). In the end, Stalin was highly successful: he remained in power until he died of natural causes and managed to expand his empire considerably. What else does a dictator want? PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:35, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

AboutFace 22, "The Soviet Union attacked Romania before WWII and annexed Bessarabia". I suppose you meant "before Barbarossa" as the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia took place in 1940. — Kpalion^(talk) 09:21, 18 March 2024 (UTC)