Low Priority

A new Atlantic article on untested rape kits is very thorough and contains a lot of information which may be a revelation to those whose ideas about cops are largely drawn from cop glorification shows; unfortunately, it has a serious flaw which skews its analysis from the title onward.  Rape cases don’t go uninvestigated because cops and prosecutors don’t believe victims; they languish because cops and prosecutors don’t care about victims, especially not the marginalized women who make up the majority of serial rapists’ targets.  The notion that the purpose of cops is “protecting” people is a myth primarily believed by naive whites; that is not their function, and never has been since modern policing was invented by Sir Robert Peel in 1829.  The simple and unpleasant truth is that cops don’t bother to get rape kits tested because it doesn’t advance their intended purpose, namely terrorizing & subduing the populace.  Compare the non-testing of rape kits with the testing of drugs cops claim to have “found” on people they want to railroad.  Instant roadside “tests” are used to cage people; proper tests, when performed at all, take months.  That’s because the instant “tests” are incredibly inaccurate and usually result in feeding innocent people who would not otherwise be caged into the system; they are therefore high priority to people whose job is to cram as many bodies into cages as possible.  The follow-up tests that could get people out of cages?  Low priority.  Cops can safely assume an uncaught rapist (especially a serial rapist) will commit other crimes, possibly even drug “crimes”, therefore catching them for a real crime like rape is low priority to the cops.  They’d rather use the time/energy/money to cram dozens into cages for planted drugs rather than catching one rapist.  Besides, how does it terrorize ordinary folks for them to take a rapist off the street?  It doesn’t, and in fact leaving him free increases the fear that leads the hoi-polloi to support increasing the number, funding, and power of cops.  Caging non-violent people for drugs has much more power to terrorize individuals and destroy communities, and therefore is a much higher priority for those who are paid to do exactly that.