Unequal Partners: RCCs, Law Enforcement, and Medical Response to Rape

Abstract

Rose Corrigan does an excellent job in explaining the strengths and limits of rape law reform in the United States in her book Up Against a Wall: Rape Reform and the Failure of Success (2013). Corrigan challenges the success story of rape law reform in the United States. In her research she documents the continued widespread resistance of the U.S. Criminal Justice System and the medical establishment to taking rape seriously. Corrigan engages in an in depth examination of rape crisis centers in the United States, and explains their marginalized and politically sensitive position. Because Corrigan’s work takes place in the United States, all comments in this review will also focus on the U.S., unless otherwise noted. This is a unique piece of research due to its breadth and qualitative research methods. This book is a necessary read for any scholar of social movements, law & society, gender and the law, and/or those interested in issues surrounding violence against women. It is appropriate for graduate and undergraduate students in Sociology, Criminology, Social Movements, Law & Society, Criminal Justice, Political Science and History. Corrigan argues that rape care work in the United States is misunderstood in much of the academic literature and works to set the record straight. This study starts to fill the void of research on rape care work in the literature on law and social movements. Corrigan highlights the limits of legal mobilization. She argues that rape law reform ultimately has failed victims, in that there are nowmore laws on the books, but enforcement of and adherence to these laws is lacking. The insightful analysis here highlights the pitfalls and shortcomings of feminist attempts to use the law for social change. Corrigan outlines the struggle between feminist activists and the state over defining sexual violence. This book asks critical questions about the impact of legal reform to better understand how legal reforms intersect with existing institutional norms, practices and values, and with the internal politics of the anti-rape movement. Corrigan asks: