“I Have Heard Horrible Stories . . .”: Rape Victim Advocates' Perceptions of the Revictimization of Rape Victims by the Police and Medical System
Abstract
This study explores rape victim advocates' perceptions of the revictimization of rape victims by the police and medical system. Most of the previous research on revictimization focuses on either victims or members of the criminal justice, legal, medical, or mental health systems. The current study provides a more complete picture of victims' possible revictimization by the police and medical system through in-depth interviews with 47 rape victim advocates in four states who had direct experience with police or medical professionals. Rape victim advocates describe the power wielded by the police and medical system to revictimize rape victims and their own role in attempting to mitigate this revictimization.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Studies have documented that interactions with law enforcement can be a source of invalidation and blame following a SA.
“Studies have documented that interactions with law enforcement can be a source of invalidation and blame following a SA (Ahrens, 2006; Campbell, 2006; Maier, 2008)”
From “Having One Person Tell Me I Didn’t Do the Wrong Thing”: The Impact of Support on the Post-Sexual Assault Exam Experience (2024) · cites this paper as Maier, 2008
Cites
Campbell, R., Patterson, D., & Lichty, L. F. (2005) · Trauma, Violence, & Abuse · doi:10.1177/1524838005280328 · Cited by 324 · see citing works
Sexual assault cases in the legal system: Police, prosecutor, and victim perspectives.
Frazier, P. A., & Haney, B. (1996) · Law and Human Behavior · doi:10.1007/bf01499234 · Cited by 319 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Trauma-Informed Police Responses to Rape Victims
Rich, K. (2019) · Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma · doi:10.1080/10926771.2018.1540448 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Procedural justice in contacts with the police: the perspective of victims of crime
Elliott, I., Thomas, S. D. M., & Ogloff, J. R. P. (2012) · Police Practice and Research · doi:10.1080/15614263.2011.607659 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
Police officers' collaboration with rape victim advocates: Barriers and facilitators
Rich, K., & Seffrin, P. (2013) · Violence and Victims · doi:10.1891/0886-6708.vv-d-12-00044 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Rape Crisis Victim Advocacy: A Systematic Review
Wegrzyn, A., Tull, P., Greeson, M. R., Pierre-Louis, C., Patton, E., & Shaw, J. (2023) · Trauma, Violence, & Abuse · doi:10.1177/15248380221082089 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
“…quantitative and qualitative studies of advocates and agency directors indicated that primary motivations of advocates include mitigating harm, restoring survivor agency, and preventing retraumatization following the trauma of SA (Macy et al., 2011; Maier, 2008; Ullman & Townsend, 2008).”
BackgroundSexual assault survivors' engagement with advocacy services during the COVID‐19 pandemic
Engleton, J., Goodman‐Williams, R., Javorka, M., Gregory, K., & Campbell, R. (2022) · Journal of Community Psychology · doi:10.1002/jcop.22819 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Birds of a feather or fish out of water? Policewomen taking rape reports
Rich, K., & Seffrin, P. (2014) · Feminist Criminology · doi:10.1177/1557085113510551 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Suicidal Ideation Among Male Victim-Survivors of Financial Sextortion
Liggett O’Malley, R., & Smith, K. (2025) · Victims & Offenders · doi:10.1080/15564886.2024.2379818 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Wright, E. N., Miyamoto, S., & Anderson, J. (2024) · Violence Against Women · doi:10.1177/10778012231156153 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“The initial healthcare response during the aftermath of SA can have profound impacts on the survivor (Campbell et al., 2001,, 2005; Caswell et al., 2019; Kirkner et al., 2021; Maier, 2008).”
Background
- Authors
- Maier, S. L.
- Affiliations
- Widener University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Maier, Shana L.
- ORCID
- Maier, Shana L.
- Venue
- Violence Against Women
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2008-07
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 786-808
- ISSN
- 1077-8012 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-8448
- OpenAlex
- W2109604982
- Cited by
- 250
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 20.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Violence Against Women (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies
- Social Sciences › Health › Intimate Partner and Family Violence
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Keywords
- rape, revictimization, police, medical systems, victim advocacy, power, intimate partner violence, sexual violence
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Anecdotes as Topic, Crisis Intervention, Female, Humans, Male, Patient Advocacy, Power, Psychological, Rape, Stereotyping, United States, Police, Survivors, Crime Victims, Law Enforcement
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
