Surviving Austerity: Rape Crisis Centers and the Illinois State Budget Impasse BY ANNE KIRKNER B.A., Pennsylvania State University, 2008 M.A., Colorado State University, 2012 DISSERTATION Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Criminology, Law, and Justice in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Chicago, 2019 Chicago, Illinois Defense Committee: Sarah E. Ullman, Criminology, Law, and Justice, Chair and Advisor Beth Richie, Criminology, Law, and Justice Edna Erez, Criminology, Law, and Justice Lisa Frohmann, Criminology, Law, and Justice LaDonna Long, Roosevelt University Megan Alderden, Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority This dissertation is dedicated to those who work to support survivors of sexual violence. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my dissertation committee- Dr. Sarah Ullman, Dr. Beth Richie, Dr. Lisa Frohmann, Dr. LaDonna Long, Dr. Edna Erez, and Dr. Megan Alderden- for their generous and supportive guidance during this process. Through our meetings and classes you have each contributed to my growth as a scholar, researcher, and activist. I would not be completing this degree without your collective kindness. Special thanks to Dr. Ullman for her tireless work with me and the rest of the graduate students she mentors. You teach us every semester that rigorous research and publishing do not have to come at the expense of caring about people. Especially during this last semester in school, I cannot imagine a more supportive environment. I also want to thank Dr. Alderden and the team at ICJIA’s Center for Victim Studies- Dr. Jaclyn Houston-Kolnik, Jennifer Hiselman, and Amanda Vasquez. I have learned so much from working there and becoming familiar with the InfoNet database. Thank you for answering my questions and showing me how to work with the data. And thank you for teaching me how to engage in applied research that is accountable to agency partners. Your willingness to help me understand all the different funding and reporting processes and your patience has helped support me throughout the project and dissertation writing. Thank you for facilitating the data gathering and connecting me to agency partners. This research also relies on the trust of the RCCs in Illinois and I am very grateful to all the organizations that shared their data in the form of numbers and stories. I have learned so much from everyone I met during this project. Your strength throughout the budget crisis is admirable- I hope this project does justice to your stories. And I hope this project is helpful to all the centers and sparks conversation. iii Major thanks to my many colleagues and to the Executive Director, Dawn Tefft, of the Graduate Employees Organization. We accomplished something great this semester that took several years of careful planning. I feel lucky to have been there from the beginning. I learned as much organizing with my union as I did from my graduate school classes. Solidarity forever. Thank you to my parents, Rob and Ellen Kirkner, who are some of my dearest friends and closest confidants. Thank you for your endless support from 600 miles away. And thank you for raising me to be a pro-union feminist. Thanks to my loving partner, Ishmael Ali Zghoul, for supporting me in ways big and small. Thank you for always believing I would finish even when I did not. Thanks also to Erin O’Callaghan and Veronica Shepp for motivating me to keep going in our long work sessions at coffee shops, fun at happy hours and karaoke, and sticking it out together in long union meetings and during our epic strike. I am proud to call you friends and colleagues. I am looking forward to seeing all the great work you will continue to do in this field. ACK iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................... 1 A. Dissertation Overview ............................................................................................................ 2 II. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................................... 3 A. Anti-Violence Organizations: History and Funding .............................................................. 4 1. History of VAW organizations ........................................................................................... 5 2. Current state of victim services ......................................................................................... 13 B. Victims Seeking Help from Service Providers .................................................................... 16 1. Sexual assault .................................................................................................................... 17 2. Domestic violence ............................................................................................................. 19 3. Demographic differences in help-seeking ........................................................................ 20 C. A Feminist Political Economy of Austerity ......................................................................... 21 1. Intersectional feminist political economy ......................................................................... 24 D. The Effects of Austerity on Victim Services ....................................................................... 25 E. Organizational Theories ....................................................................................................... 26 1. Feminist organizations ...................................................................................................... 27 2. Criminal justice organizational theories ........................................................................... 28 F. Study Rationale ..................................................................................................................... 32 III. CURRENT STUDY................................................................................................................ 35 A. Understanding RCC Clients and Services in Illinois ........................................................... 35 B. Research Questions & Hypotheses ...................................................................................... 36 1. Effects on Total Monthly Service Hours .......................................................................... 37 2. Effects on Monthly Service Hours .................................................................................... 37 3. Effects of Budget Impasse on Agencies Serving Racial and Ethnic Minorities ............... 39 4. Differences Between Rural and Urban Agencies ............................................................. 39 5. Effects on Agencies and Decision-Making ....................................................................... 39 IV. METHODS ............................................................................................................................. 43 A. Mixed-method Approach: Concurrent Triangulation .......................................................... 43 B. Quantitative Methods ........................................................................................................... 44 1. Sample............................................................................................................................... 45 2. Interrupted Time Series Regression Analysis ................................................................... 45 C. Qualitative Methods ............................................................................................................. 50 1. Sample............................................................................................................................... 50 2. Data Cleaning and Analysis .............................................................................................. 54 v TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) V. RESULTS ................................................................................................................................ 57 A. Quantitative Results ............................................................................................................. 57 1. Dataset Descriptive Information ....................................................................................... 57 2. Time Series Analysis ........................................................................................................ 57 B. Qualitative Results ............................................................................................................... 69 1. Interview Sample Descriptive Information ....................................................................... 69 2. Crisis Mitigation Strategies............................................................................................... 71 3. Effects on staff and volunteers .......................................................................................... 76 4. Effects on clients ............................................................................................................... 81 5. Collaboration..................................................................................................................... 88 6. Talking to Legislators/Lobbying....................................................................................... 90 7. Crisis Decision-making ....................................................................................................