Under Pressure: Rape Crisis Centres, Multi-Agency Work and Strategies for Survival

Abstract

This chapter explores the organisational dilemmas, challenges and difficulties facing women working in Rape Crisis Centres (RCCs) in Britain in the 1990s. To this end, I propose to review critically the organisational settings and interface between RCCs on the one hand, as the acknowledged service providers of specialist support services for female survivors of men’s violence, and, on the other hand, the police and Victim Support Schemes (VSS), which, respectively, provide statutory and traditional voluntary services for crime victims. My interest in this interface has emerged out of ongoing research¹ into services for survivors² of sexual violence.