Rape Survivors' Experiences With the Legal and Medical Systems

Abstract

This study used a naturalistic quasi-experimental design to examine whether rape survivors who had the assistance of rape victim advocates had more positive experiences with the legal and medical systems compared to those who did not work with advocates. Eighty-one survivors were interviewed in two urban hospitals about what services they received from legal and medical system personnel and how they were treated during these interactions. Survivors who had the assistance of an advocate were significantly more likely to have police reports taken and were less likely to be treated negatively by police officers. These women also reported less distress after their contact with the legal system. Similarly, survivors who worked with an advocate during their emergency department care received more medical services, including emergency contraception and sexually transmitted disease prophylaxis, reported significantly fewer negative interpersonal interactions with medical system personnel, and reported less distress from their medical contact experiences.

Adolescent Relationship Violence: Help-Seeking and Help-Giving Behaviors among Peers

“…Programs already exist that could provide a model framework for peer program development, including bystander intervention programs such as Mentors in Violence Prevention, 38 relationship violence interventions such as the Safe Dates evaluated school-based curriculum which includes help-giving training for adolescents, 39 and peer crisis intervention models such as the Rape Crisis Advocate model from the sexual violence field 40 and System Navigators from the HIV field. 41 These four programs train volunteers (often peers and members of the community) in crisis response skills such as active listening as well as how to navigate formal systems to provide support to the person in crisis.…”

Institutional betrayal.

“…Her experience of sexual violence and doubts about reporting it is shared by as many as one quarter of all college women (Zinzow & Thompson, 2011). Her experience of unhelpful law enforcement and unresponsive legal systems, described as a "second assault" (Campbell, 2006), is faced by many rape survivors, who are further blamed or stigmatized when they seek help from judicial systems or medical systems (Ullman & Filipas, 2001). But Lizzy's story is embedded in a prestigious university, home to a storied athletic program, with a high-profile student athlete as the alleged perpetrator.…”

“…First, these are institutions that foster a sense of trust or dependency from their members (often both). Drawing on her extensive work in secondary victimization of women seeking legal services following interpersonal violence, Campbell (2006) noted, "When victims reach out for help, they place a great deal of trust [emphasis added] in the legal, medical, and mental health systems as they risk disbelief, blame, and refusals of help" (p. 703). This relationship to institutions suggests that these types of traumatic experiences can be examined through a lens of betrayal trauma in much the same way as abuse occurring within a close personal relationship.…”

Stopping rape

“…Victim-survivors of rape can mobilise a SART by contacting a police service, presenting at an emergency department, or calling the victim helpline. Experiences of victim-survivors are overall positive (for SANEs, see FehlerCabral et al, 2011; for victim advocacy services, see Campbell, 2006). However, victim-survivors presenting at an emergency department for healthcare often did not have life-or limbthreatening physical injuries, and reported long waits to be seen after being triaged as 'non-urgent' (Wang and Rowley, 2007).…”