Rape Crisis in Crisis?

Rape Crisis in Crisis? Dr Helen Jones Manchester Metropolitan University h.jones@mmu.ac.uk

Who, What, Why, When? • The intersection between academic research and activism • The rape crisis movement • Political imperatives • Filling the gaps of public sector provision • A ten year journey

How? • Questionnaire • Interviews with rape crisis groups • Interviews with former Rape Crisis Federation board members

Funding support for rape crisis groups on a local level… • South Essex Rape and Incest Crisis Centre: one of the largest and most well-established rape crisis groups in the country. For the year ending March 2003 their income totalled £448,255. • The second, Milton Keynes Rape Crisis had a total income of £11,102 in the year ending March 2003. A volunteer commented “we are constantly trying to submit funding bids but when they [the funding body] don’t even reply, it feels like, well why do we bother?” Milton Keynes Rape Crisis closed in August 2004 due to lack of funding.

Extent of service demand • The early twenty-first century has seen a rise of reported rapes - in 2002 there were 11,441 reported rapes (Simmons and Dodd, 2003) and this rose in 2003 to over 14,000 (Truth About Rape, 2004)

The Rape And Sexual Abuse (RASA) Centre - Merseyside • Established in 1986 in Merseyside in the UK. • One paid worker and unpaid volunteers perform much of the work of the agency: this is similar to other rape crisis groups in the UK and across Europe where “volunteers continue to be vital” (Kelly and Regan, 2001:49).

A local problem…. • “just two pounds pays to phone a woman back, to provide her with the contact she needs; that fifty pounds pays for a groupwork session, providing support for up to eight women; and that one hundred and twenty pounds would train a volunteer to work on a helpline or cover the costs of counselling for a woman who has been raped” (interview with RCF Trustee, 2003). • Lisa Masters, RASA’s fundraiser, suggests that it “would seem obvious then that funding should be obtained from the statutory services. Unfortunately this is not the case. RASA is constantly passed from one department to another and never appears to fall under anyone’s priorities” (interview, August 2003).

….or a national outrage • A Home Office publication on rape noted “It should also be emphasised that these support services are under-funded” (Myhill and Allen, 2002:62)

The Rape Crisis Federation • Established in 1996 as a national co-ordinating body for the rape crisis movement in England and Wales • The key aims of the organisation: • to secure a voice for the independent, locally based rape crisis groups that constitute its membership; • to lobby and campaign for changes in legislation on sexual violence • to secure statutory funding for rape crisis centres.

Successes • Lobbied on a significant number of legislative and policy related issues, significantly the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act and most recently the Sexual Offences Act

Relationship with the State • In the US, many rape crisis groups have felt that becoming less radical was the key to surviving the demands of politics. • “organizations dependent on public sector grants and contracts are more likely to conform to the state dependency thesis than non-profit organizations which rely on either third-party payments, donations or commercial income for the bulk of their revenue”. (Anheier et al., 1997:194)

Closure • The Rape Crisis Federation closed in November 2003 - not due to a lack of need for such an organisation. • London Rape Crisis also closed in 2003 also due to a crisis in funding. • Four other rape crisis centres have closed in the past year.

The future of funding for rape crisis • February 2004 – Home Office conference on future support of victims • November 2004 – announcement of a funding budget for sexual violence services • March 2005 – funding given to a number of rape crisis groups – including RASA and the RCCG

Rape Crisis in Crisis?