ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the history of the rape crisis centers and describes sexual assault nurse examiner/Sexual Assault Response Team services for rape victims. The underreporting of rape is well known, there is less information on women who fail to disclose to anyone. Rape crisis centers have been providing services for victims. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center is housed in Enola, Pennsylvania, and provides information and resources, technical assistance, and access to research through its toll-free number and email address. In the early 1970s, when police departments and rape crisis centers first began to address the crime of rape, little was known about rape victims or sex offenders. Feminist groups had just begun to raise the issue of rape, and in 1971 the New York Speak-Out on Rape had been held, drawing widespread attention to rape. In 1972, a victim-counseling program was developed as a nurse-managed service at the Boston City Hospital by Ann Wolbert Burgess and Lynda Lytle Holmstrom.
