ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter has two purposes: the first is to describe the Relationship Violence Centre (RVC), and the second is to examine abused women’s attitudes to and their experience of support during the police investigation and trial. Established in 2007, the RVC in Stockholm constitutes an example of a collaborative project between the police and the social services, with the goal of providing social support to female victims of domestic violence during the criminal investigation and trial. Since the 1990s, there has been an increased focus on domestic violence in the Swedish political debate. The Swedish government has stated that it is absolutely essential that people who are victims of crime dare to report this to the police and participate in the police investigation and trial (Enarsson, 2013). The social services’ responsibility for crime victims in general, and for abused women in particular, was included in the Social Services Act (SSA, 2001: 453) in several steps during 1998-2007 (see also Ljungwald, 2011). Social workers and social work have often been criticized for failing to adequately address violence against women and to recognize the women as victims of domestic violence (von Schantz Lundgren, 2011; Münger, 2009; Pyles & Postmus, 2004; Seith, 2001). For women with previous negative experiences with the social services, it can be difficult to ask for help (Weisz, 2005). The social services’ statutory responsibility to assess the vulnerability of children can be perceived as negative by abused women who have their ability as parents questioned, an experience that can prevent them from asking the social services for support and help (Agevall, 2012).
