This study compares rape crisis centers as feminist movement organizations and mainstream human service organizations which deal with rape survivors. It compares 25 rape crisis centers and 106 mainstream human service organizations on two criteria: (1) community education activities, intended targets and foci of messages; and (2) the breadth of interventive activities, intensiveness of staff contact and extensiveness of outreach efforts. The research design involves a secondary analysis of data collected by Martin et al. (1984) on needs of rape victims in Florida. Five types of organizations are studied: rape crisis centers, hospital emergency rooms, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and remaining human service organizations. Six dependent variables are examined. / Six major findings are as follows. First, rape crisis centers engage in more community education activities than do mainstream human service organizations. Second, rape crisis centers emphasize community education messages with a social change focus more than do mainstream human service organizations. Third, rape crisis centers do not reach professional groups more than potential victim groups in community education activities. Problems in measurement precluded a thorough comparison of organizations on intervention activities. However, a fourth finding is that rape crisis centers fail to differ from mainstream organizations on this variable. Fifth, rape crisis centers do not spend more time with rape survivors than do prosecutors and only slightly more than do law enforcement agencies although sixth, they see on an annual basis far more rape survivors than do mainstream human service organizations. / Conclusions are that rape crisis centers differ from mainstream human service organizations in several respects and resemble them in others. The evidence suggests that rape crisis centers may be educating mainstream organizations on rape issues while adopting certain messages and services from them as well. The future of rape crisis centers as feminist movement organizations is discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-02, Section: A, page: 0482. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76027 |
| Contributors | MAXWELL, MARGARET SHARON., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 216 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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