Ten thousand rape kits tested. One hundred twenty-seven convictions won, 1,947 cases investigated, 817 serial rapists identified.

It's been a long eight years for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy.

In 2009, 11,341 untested sexual assault kits — the results of an hours-long process that collects evidence from the body of a rape victim — were found during a routine tour of a Detroit police storage warehouse, some dating back to 1984. Worthy and her team started the long and laborious process of testing those kits, investigating the crimes, and prosecuting the perpetrators — and launching Enough SAID, an effort to raise the money to complete the work. It's a reversal of a decades-long miscarriage of justice. This month, Worthy spoke to the Free Press about the work done thus far — and the long road ahead.

Q: One of the most astounding findings here is that you've identified 817 serial rapists. That's 817 people who attacked more than one person — and crimes that could possibly have been prevented if those people had been caught.

A: This is how I try to put it in context for people: There are estimated to be 400,000 untested rape kits in the country. In one city, in one county, in one state, we had 11,341. That means a couple of things: Number one, this problem is a lot more pervasive than people could ever have imagined. Number two, (that's) on top of the very low rate that people report in the first place. That means there is much more sexual assault going on, that it's much more pervasive than people think. I think nationally the number is about 20% of rapes that are reported, and when you get to the prosecution stage it's very, very little ... that's very sobering, very sad and very pathetic.

Q: In terms of the 817 identified serial rapists who strike between 10 and 15 times —

A: A rapist rapes on average seven to 11 times before they're caught. ... Of our set of 817 ... over 50 of them have 10 to 15 hits apiece.

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Q: So how should that inform law enforcement, prosecutors' understanding of how to prevent, investigate, prosecute these crimes?

A: I'm not sure that I have an answer to that. All I can say from my perspective, even if that wasn't true, we should take these cases seriously.

Q: Testing kits, identifying perpetrators and prosecuting them is part of the work. But you're also working hard to change the system, to ensure that this can't happen again.

A: We had to do a number of things ... when we first started, we knew we didn't want to be in this place five, 10 years down the road. I don't anticipate we're going to be done with these cases — investigating, prosecuting — for another three years or so.

There has be a (sexual assault kit) protocol, and there is now in the Detroit Police Department ... Police officers do not make that decision, they just all go.

We started off with an 18-month pilot program with UPS. We knew that if you could track a package, when you order something online, you ought to be able to track a rape kit in your own state.

Legislation that was signed by Gov. Rick Snyder in 2014 ... created ... standards for when kits get to the lab — 14 days to take it to the lab and 90 days to turn it around, assuming lab has the resources. And that's statewide.

The other huge change that we made here in Wayne County ... is the training. Training officers on how you're supposed to treat victims ... about the neurobiology of trauma. When a potential victim comes into the police department and is laughing or has a flat affect, it doesn't mean they weren't raped. We reviewed many many police reports where the officers dismissed (victims) because they didn't act the way they thought they should act.

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Q: All the things you were talking about, the better tracking system, the new guidelines for when rape kits get tested ... in the National Institute of Justice report on the backlog (by Michigan State University Professor Rebecca Campbell), the big takeaway there was that too often, officers didn't believe victims, and had used disbelief as a way to triage their workload.

A: They just closed cases, even cases where I think they believed the victim ... They closed cases because the women had worked as prostitutes or had mental illness issues or had substance abuse. Didn't believe them, didn't care, and this was one issue that led to the backlog of these kits.

Q: That's something we look for in certain victims — when the victim is a teenage boy of color, or a woman who has been raped, we want them to be perfect. They can't have had a drink or have worked as a prostitute, and if they have, there's a mindset that makes them almost ineligible to be a victim.

A: One of the reasons we have these untested rape kits ... and I can use Detroit as an example, 86% of our victims in these untested kits are people of color. You're not going to find too many blond-haired, blue eyed white women ... Because their kits are treated differently, their cases are solved. That's just the way it is in this country. If you're a person of color, if you're a different economic class, then your case across the board, across the board, not just sexual assault — they're treated differently. And that's just the truth. People may not want to admit it, but I've seen it throughout my career and I know it's true ... It's just true. ... Race is at the center of this in many ways as well, unfortunately, we know that across the criminal justice system. ...

The training aspect is a huge aspect that can turn around this issue. If we cannot treat our sexual assault victims right, especially if justice has been denied to them for so many years, we certainly want to be able to treat our current survivors properly. As you well know, culture change is the hardest kind of change to make.

Q: Eight years into this now with the rape kits, looking back over this time, what stands out to you the most?

A: The number of serial rapists. The fact that when you get these kits tested, it can help exonerate someone, potentially. Some of these cases had already been tried. What I talk about all the time, is just in our kits, in one state, in one city, they have tentacles to crime scenes in 39 other states. And finally, the fact that once these hits get into CODIS (the FBI's Combined DNA Index System database), law enforcement can solve more than just sexual assault. They can solve homicide, can solve breaking and entering, because the crimes in other states we're talking about are not just sexual assault.

We had many jurisdictions across the states — and you can go to endthebacklog.org — that have found these kits and are not doing anything. They're saying it didn't happen on our watch ... I don't know how anybody can look at this problem square in the face and say that.

No one would be saying this, and you wouldn't even have to ask that question, if we were talking about homicides. You may not have the resources, may not be able to tackle all of these cold cases, but given the resources ... no one turns their back on a cold case homicide. So we wouldn't even have this discussion ... but because it's sexual assault, for whatever reason, it's very easy for some folks to sweep this under the rug.

Q: If you arrest someone for homicide, let's say the wrong person gets arrested, no one tries to convince the people there wasn't a homicide.

A: Right.

Q: They might say it was the wrong guy, or we can't find the person who did it, but no one says there wasn't a murder.

A: Sexual assault is the neglected child of the family ... it was very, very difficult to get this off the ground. Thankfully, it's not like that now. Cities that are finding these rape kits in their jurisdictions are finding a myriad of resources they can go to, they have a protocol as a result of our project.

Q: You're getting more support from the county, but you still have to supplement this work with outside funds.

A: (Wayne County Executive) Warren Evans and the Wayne County Commission have given $1 million for the second year in a row, so they have spent $2 million. (Under a previous administration the attitude was) only if we can get outside funding should we be doing it.

Q: Which is part of that crazy attitude, that somehow this is an optional crime.

KW: I don't understand that. Everybody has a mother. A sister, a wife or a partner, or aunt or or some female that they are close to. And men, too. This happens to men. We have men in our project. We have some children.

Q: Do you feel like in this moment we're having as a culture, do you think that's going to help with not seeing it is a crime, or not being sure it was really a crime?

KW: I hope so. I hope so. I remain optimistic. If I didn't remain optimistic and hopeful, I couldn't do this job.