Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy: Untested Rape Kits Illustrate Funding Crisis

Her office understaffed and underfunded, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym L. Worthy is fighting to bring justice to 11,000 victims whose rape kits were found abandoned in a Detroit police warehouse in 2009.

Bringing justice to those victims epitomizes the financial and political challenges of her office.

“We’ve gone through extraordinary measures to get as far as we are now and we’re going to get this done,” Worthy said. “You had potentially 11,000 victims, overwhelmingly women, overwhelmingly women of color, overwhelmingly from the city of Detroit, and if you can’t care about this issue, then I don’t know what you care about as a human being. This a human issue.”

When sexual assaults are reported, evidence is collected in an examination and stored in what’s called a rape kit. Since about 11,000 untested rape kits were discovered abandoned in a Detroit police warehouse in 2009, Worthy has been tenacious in her efforts to get the kits tested.

So far, around 100 serial rapists have been identified based on DNA evidence collected in the rape kits, some dating back to the 1970s. The rape kit problem is not unique to Detroit. Nationwide, about 400,000 units going untested nationally.

During her term, Worthy hasn’t been quiet about that and other hurdles she’s had to jump. She argues that the county won’t give her enough money to have the rape kits tested and prosecute other violent crimes – and that some county officials are standing in her way.

Chief among them is Wayne County CEO Robert Ficano, Worthy says. Ficano wants to use $60 million to pay off the county’s deficit, but Worthy argues the money is better spent testing the rape kits to help bring justice to victims who have been waiting for it for at least 25 years. It’s a fight that epitomizes the challenge she wants other county officials to recognize:

Her office is in dire need of resources if justice is to be served.

“It has made Wayne County and its management policies a laughing stock across the country, and people do not understand why a prosecutor’s office and other safety functions are not funded,” Worthy said. “It’s beyond ridiculous; it’s very tragic.”

Worthy has teamed with “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” star Mariska Hargitay to raise awareness about sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse, using Hargitay’s nonprofit initiative, the Joyful Heart Foundation, as a platform to further her initiative.

Hargitay appeared with Worthy this spring at a news conference where she announced her push to get the rape kits tested.

“Well, this is kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back for a lot of people in this county,” Worthy said. “You have the potential prosecution of rapes, sexual assaults coming from these kits, and the county has not put in one dime of money for these efforts, not one dime, not a cent.

“I’ve had to personally go around this country fundraising to prosecute violent crime, which is unbelieveable.”

The apparent lack of compassion for the victims of sexual assault troubles Worthy.

“The last time I checked, sexual assault was a crime – in fact ,a violent one – and there should be no question at all,” she said. “And I’m not saying it’s not an expensive undertaking – prosecuting crime is – but what’s more important: Having your citizens safe or not?”

The funding issue came to a head in mid-April.

After Ficano reneged on a three-year deal that would’ve provided her office adequate funding to prosecute those and other violent crimes, Worthy sued county executive and the county over deep budget cuts that left her with less money and fewer prosecutors. The lawsuit remains unresolved The Detroit Free Press, reports.

Statistics illustrating the level of violent crime in Wayne County are staggering.

Every year, 200,000 people are victims of sexual assault. Every day, more than five American children die due to child abuse and neglect. Every two minutes, an American is sexually assaulted.

In Wayne County, there are 1,000 outstanding arrest warrants: 180 are for child abuse, 150 are for sexual assault and 40 are for murder, reports WDIV, Channel 4.

There were six murders for every 100,000 people in 2013, a decrease from 2012, according to Michigan Incident Crime Reporting. There were 3,236 reported sexual assault crimes in 2013, which is also a decrease since 2012.

There are about 6,000 cases of breaking and entering in Detroit each year, Worthy pointed out, and because the prosecutor’s office doesn’t have the proper resources to collect evidence and get law enforcement to respond, a large percentage of these cases never go to trial.

“The first duty of government is to keep its citizens safe and we have not been operating in that way for the last two and a half years,” she said. “We’re down 100 people, and we can’t prosecute crimes effectively, efficiently or as thoroughly as we’d like. and that’s no way to run a law enforcement office when you have people’s lives in your hands every day.”

Worthy rattled off the different hires and departments she would have if she received sufficient funding: 25 new prosecutors, a full-time criminal analyst, grant writer, legislative liaison and accountant, plus 50 investigators, which most offices of similar size have at least double the number, she argued.

“This is not a dream list,” Worthy said. “This is a list for the WCPO to be fully operational in today’s climate.”

Her no-nonsense, unflinching approach to justice has earned Worthy a solid reputation as a fearless and dogged prosecutor in Wayne County’s court system throughout her tenure. She began her legal career with the prosecutor’s office in 1984 after graduating from law school, served as a judge, and then, in 2004, became the first African-American and female to serve as Wayne County prosecutor.

Worthy has no plans of leaving the Wayne County Prosecutors Office but when she does, she hopes to leave a legacy of pushing the envelope and fighting for Wayne County residents.

“I’d like to retire from this office leaving a culture of cooperativeness,” she said.

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PHOTO: Kym Worthy presides over one of the most understaffed and underfunded prosecutor’s offices in the country but she is determined to find funding and justice for 11,000 Wayne County rape victims (Photo Courtesy of the Wayne County Prosecutors Office).