Admissibility in court feels like the barest minimum of requirements here, to say nothing of the other services like counceling the linked thread discusses.
At home kits have been admitted to courts in California. The tweets claiming these kits are inadmissible is false.<p><a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/04/9727395/rape-kit-at-home-california-nurses-sexual-assault-help" rel="nofollow">https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/04/9727395/rape-kit-at...</a><p>A judge determines what's admissible in a court of law. That's why your texts, social media posts, etc are all admissable.<p>The companies in this space are not trying to fool anyone into not going into the hospital. They are trying to help serve the 80%+ of survivors that never go to the official system.
Rather than a “rape kit start up,” which is a really awful phrase to use, why don’t we process all of the backlog rape kits that are sitting in the evidence lockers across the country, first.
Here's some additional reporting on this:<p><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/diy-remote-rape-kit-coronavirus/" rel="nofollow">https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/diy-remote-rape...</a>
Immoral to give survivors options other than the largely unused hospital and law enforcement processes? Any sexual assault counselor should know that survivors most often do not want to be re-traumatized through being physically manipulated by another individual. If COVID-19 has shown us anything, it is that remote options ARE feasible. Self-use kits were used in Monterey and Marin counties in California out of necessity (<a href="https://www.ksbw.com/article/monterey-county-das-office-allowing-victims-self-administer-rape-kits-at-home/32165425" rel="nofollow">https://www.ksbw.com/article/monterey-county-das-office-allo...</a>), and necessity breeds widely used innovation. It would make sense to die on this hill if the current system was survivor-centric. But it is not. You’re putting far too much faith in a system built to reflect and serve the interests of law enforcement and hospitals, not the needs of survivors. Moreover, further research will show you that the startup explicitly encourages survivors to visit a hospital or contact law enforcement if at all possible. Not only is your information outdated, but it is also misleading. Try keeping your personal value statements (and your baseless interpretation of criminal law?) out of the conversation. Ask sexual assault survivors what they would like to see instead.
> An Immoral, DIY Rape Kit Startup<p>I read the title as there was a startup selling kits for DIY rape. Pretty immoral indeed. I was just wondering what's in the kit.
This is a tweet thread covering the risks of a tech startup that has raised money in the effort to disrupt rape kits, most specifically having previously called itself MeToo Kits and rebranding to Leda Health. The tweet thread explains that the DIY rape kits are likely doing more harm than good, partially because these rape kits don't have the documentation of who owned the kid when and where that a rape kit at a hospital would have and therefore may not be admissible in court.