SARCC and our sister sexual assault programs have been sharing information and trying to draw attention to the funding crisis that sexual assault services centers have faced in Pennsylvania since last summer. Following meetings with each of our local elected officials, SARCC was proud to be able to submit to PCAR copies of letters from each of the Lebanon and Schuylkill County state elected officials back in the spring. Each of our representatives asked appropriations in both the House and the Senate to take a closer look at the rape crisis line item in the state budget. Sexual assault centers and services for survivors have been level funded since 2021. This funding crisis and the local impact were discussed in a blog post in May.
Recent budget negotiations in both the House and the Senate of the Pennsylvania state legislature, bring back to the surface the importance of understanding the difference between sexual assault services and other types of victim service providers. Correspondence from the Shapiro administration that was reported and a recent Public Source news article suggest that the governor’s attention to sexual assault rape kept tracking, is equivalent to offering no cost services to sexual assault. In reality, the governor pays more attention to evidence tracking than he does to supporting sexual assault victims through local sexual assault centers.
Evidence collection and accountability for people who perpetrate sexual assault is incredibly important. At the same time, it is just as important to support the healing and access to Victim Services supports for sexual assault, child, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and human trafficking survivors. If you would like a more detailed explanation of the impacts in both rural and urban counties of level funding and cuts at the federal level to the crime victims fund, please refer to the Public Source article.
If you’d like to get in the game and help to support an $8 million increase in sexual assault line item for rape crisis services, please contact your legislators and the governor’s office to let them know that you understand the difference between accountability for perpetrators AND a crisis response system that supports victim healing. BOTH need to be SUSTAINABLY funded if we would like to create a safe environment for sexual assault survivors moving forward in Pennsylvania.
