Effective Advocacy in Rural Domains

Abstract

Past scholarship has explored the ecological model as it pertains to intimate partner violence from the victim’s perspective. Missing from this literature is the application of the ecological model to victim advocates, specifically rural victim advocates. This article explores the microsystem and exosystem levels of the ecological model to understand victim advocates’ relationships with their clients and criminal justice personnel. To investigate these relationships, we used a sample of rural advocates located within the Mississippi Delta Region. The findings from the interviews and focus group indicate that the density of rural relationships both help facilitate and create barriers to effective victim advocacy. Social capital specific to the rural domain is being generated by the advocates to benefit themselves and their clients.

Keywords

rural advocacy ecological model interpersonal violence

Introduction

Research indicates that the experiences of advocates who work with victims of interpersonal violence in rural areas face barriers and problems that are unique to rural areas (Logan, Stevenson, Evans, & Leukefeld, 2004; McGrath, Johnson, & Miller, 2012; Websdale, 1998). How and why ruralness and rural culture (i.e., low population density, patriarchal attitudes, etc.) complicate victim advocacy has not been adequately explored (McGrath et al., 2012; van Hightower & Gorton, 2002). To address this concern, we use an ecological model to consider the experiences of rural advocates shaped by the microsystem and exosystems in which they work. Essentially, the ecological model of developmental psychology argues that human environments are interrelated systems that are nested within one another in successive levels (see Bronfenbrenner, 1979). To date, the ecological approach has not been conceptualized to explain rural victim advocates work as a phenomenon vested on the reciprocity among individuals, relationships, and institutions.

The current qualitative study was designed to explore how nested ecological levels in which rural victim advocates work impact their effectiveness and/or relationships with victims (McGrath et al., 2012). Most importantly, we consider the strategic use and maintenance of relationships as key to rural victim advocacy, given the resource-poor and geographically sparse environments within which they work. This mediation involves the development of microlevel relationships with individuals who are representatives of exosystem agencies of most importance to victims’ safety. Thus, advocates tap into the resources of the exosystem on behalf of their clients by creating, managing, and negotiating relationships with exosystem actors. We concentrate on the microsystem (relationship level) and the exosystem (institutional level) to illustrate how the rural environment affects advocates’ professional and personal interactions. Below is a discussion of how we adapted the ecological model to rural victim advocacy.

Rural and Urban

Urban and rural areas are very different from each other in terms of geography, culture, and population characteristics (Weisheit, Falcone, & Wells, 1999). Rural counties are more geographically dispersed and thus face greater physical isolation (Grossman, Hinkley, Kawalski, & Margrave, 2005; Websdale & Johnson, 1998). As rural areas are less densely populated, they exhibit different social climates and cultural manifestations than urban areas. The “culture” of rural areas refers to the beliefs and values of rural communities such as a lower tolerance for diversity and mistrust of outsiders (Weisheit et al., 1999; Weisheit & Wells, 1996). Research suggests that the spatial dispersion of people in rural areas may also impede social integration (Barnett & Mencken, 2002), but the ties people form in rural communities are strong and may create a system of informal social controls (Barnett & Mencken, 2002; Eastman & Bunch, 2007; Weisheit et al., 1999). The fewer people per area, the denser the acquaintanceships are, leading to an increased likelihood individuals will have known each other for longer periods of time. People may also have assumptions about others based on their family or known acquaintances. Advocates perceive these intense and interconnected relationships as a challenge for effective victim advocacy.

Rural communities are also different because rural residents have traditionally had a greater suspicion of government, especially state and federal government (Weisheit et al., 1999). They are more reluctant to share personal problems because they mistrust the government, and because they feel these matters should be handled privately (Weisheit et al., 1999). Laub (1981) found that urban residents fail to report crime because they think nothing can be done about it. Those in rural areas, however, fail to report a crime because they consider it a private concern. The rural culture reinforces the normative belief that one should take care of one’s own problems and not make them public. These rural characteristics can create challenges for advocates but they also create opportunities.

Victim Advocacy Within the Ecological Model

Prior research has used the ecological model of justice and victim service systems to explain and contextualize intimate partner violence (IPV; Krug, Dahlberg, Mercy, Zwi, & Lozano, 2002). Fleury-Steiner et al. (2006) have considered how the ecology within which women are battered influences their strategic responses to IPV. The macrosystem exists at the societal level and reflects values and norms of subcultures or the rural milieu such as patriarchal attitudes and beliefs that contribute to violence against women. The exosystem exists at a middle level and reflect institutions, organizations, and agencies that potentially provide support and resources to advocates, such as criminal justice, medical, educational, social services (mental health, substance abuse), and housing agencies. Each of these agencies contributes to the exosystem of rural domains, and their personnel and services can be seen either as potential barriers or as resources for advocates. For instance, Shobe and Dienemann (2007) argued that advocates seek to help their clients increase their human, social, or financial capital; however, the resources may not be available to the clients in rural areas. The microsystem exists at the relationship level and reflects the activities, roles, and relations experienced and managed by a person in the immediate setting. The setting in which a victim advocate operates could be complicated or benefit from personal relationships with individuals within the community. Several levels of the ecological model must be observed to interpret the wholeness of human behavior (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). In terms of victims, researchers claim that barriers at each of these levels cumulatively restrict victims’ access to support and safety (McGrath et al., 2012; Shobe & Dienemann, 2007), similar circumstances may exist for victim advocates.

All exosystem agencies and microsystem interactions are conceptualized, in this model, of existing with the macrosystem milieu. Thus the rural milieu, discussed above, serves as the backdrop for our study. To think of this slightly differently, the macrosystem essentially incorporates the space, place, and scale of rural victim advocacy (Pruitt, 2008). The scale of rural victim advocacy acknowledges the factors that intersect across the three levels of the ecological model. Our analysis focuses on how the experiences of rural advocates are shaped by the microsystem and exosystem.

Microsystem Issues for Rural Victimization and Victim Advocacy

The microsystem of the ecology of rural victim advocacy focuses on the relationships victim advocates have that facilitate and hinder effective advocacy. Victim advocates form relationships with their clients (victims) and representatives of the exosystems (social service and criminal justice personnel). The criminal justice system has witnessed a stark growth in the use of advocates for IPV victims in the last 20 years (Tomz & McGillis, 1997). These advocates tend to be located in the criminal justice system or battered women’s shelters (Tomz & McGillis, 1997). Miller and Olsen (1998) found that victims in rural areas have not benefited as much from the increase of victim advocacy as their urban counterparts, although rural rates of IPV approximate those of urban areas (Rennison & Welchans, 2000). Shelters in rural areas tend to be scarce because a single shelter can serve up to 10 surrounding counties (Donnelly, Cook, & Wilson, 1999). With there being few victim advocates for many clients, good relationships are important for efficient and effective advocacy. Thus, geographic isolation limits the benefits rural victims could receive from advocacy.

Generally, victim advocates work to protect victim’s interests, such as providing shelter, goods, money, transportation, and other services. Victim advocates also assist victims with negotiating the legal system by helping them obtain orders of protection and/or by explaining criminal justice processes (Edelson, 1993). Despite the positive services they offer, victim advocates often confront barriers to helping their clients (Payne, 2007). These barriers include but are not limited to lack of funding, transportation, and privacy. Maier (2011) highlighted how lack of agency funding can affect an advocate’s relationship with victims. If there are not enough advocates to cover an area due to funding constraints, outreach can be affected. Victim advocates’ relationships with rural victims face added obstacles due to stronger informal social control, traditional gender-role norms, and barriers in service utilization (Logan et al., 2004; Websdale, 1998). Advocate and victims relationships may also be influenced by rurality in situations where the advocate may know the family or friends of the victim. This prior relationship may create discomfort for the advocate and the victim (Logan et al., 2004; Yun, Swindell, & Kercher, 2009). Examining advocate–client relationships will provide insight on how rural obstacles specifically impact the effectiveness of rural advocacy.

Relationships With Representatives of Exosystem Services

At the microsystem level, as advocates seek to mediate the effect of the exosystem on their clients, they establish relationships with persons involved with agencies and institutions at the exosystem level, namely, the criminal justice system. According to Payne (2007), victim advocates work with a number of different officials, including police, courts, social service workers, health care officials, and mental health workers in their efforts to assist victims and minimize negative consequences of IPV prosecution of the offender(s). In this case, advocates use their social capital developed through relationships with these actors to facilitate advocacy. According to Greeley (1997), social capital is “a resource, available in social structures, that facilitates actors who wish to see certain goals and as such is neither good nor bad” (p. 587). This social structuralist interpretation of social capital contends that social capital exists in all relationships, but there are structures that can hinder or facilitate its creation (Robinson & Morash, 2000) and its utilization. Social capital can be influenced by an individual’s education and occupation (Coleman, 1988). The occupational prestige of victim advocates is generally located below that of police officers and court personnel. Advocates draw on their carefully nurtured relationships to manage this prestige limitation.

Victim advocates are particularly needed in rural areas because criminal justice response to IPV in these areas is often not up to par (Websdale, 1998). For example, police officers with victim-blaming attitudes may not offer sufficient support to the victim if they are familiar with the perpetrator. In situations such as this, a victim advocate’s relationship to police, prosecutor, and judge may help shield their client from victim-blaming attitudes. More often than not, victims’ needs cannot be met by a single service provider, which makes collaboration in rural areas especially important, because issues such as lack of staff and funding or long distances to travel may limit access to services (Sudderth, 2006).

While these factors might encourage collaboration, the scarcity of advocacy funding can also negatively affect advocate relationships (Maier, 2011). For instance, advocates may not speak up for victims as vigorously if they feel there is a chance their actions may offend representatives from institutions with which they must collaborate (Sudderth, 2006). In addition, some advocacy funding may depend on collaboration, so incessant notifications of victim mistreatment may jeopardize future funding. Payne (2008) further discussed how the goals victim advocates and other exosystem institutions, like the criminal justice system, have for the victim may differ, thus leading to less-than cooperative working relationships. For example, victim advocacy concentrates on the safety of the women and children and is based on feminist values (Pence, 2001) whereas police focus on “enforcing the law and investigating criminal behavior” (Sudderth, 2006, p. 334). These collaborations are further complicated by the ruralness of the working areas (Sudderth, 2006). Exploring advocates’ relationships with the personnel of the criminal justice system may contribute to understanding how the collaborative relationship is simultaneously beneficial and problematic. The purpose of this research is to assess the viability of an ecological model of victim advocacy and understand how these advocates mediate the challenges of their rural domains.

Method and Analysis

The data presented here focus on rural victim advocates’ experiences of advocacy shaped by the microsystem and exosystem. The implications of these data could reconceptualize a distinct rural victim advocacy ecological model. Through telephone interviews and a focus group with advocates working in shelters and other various justice agencies serving 16 disadvantaged and rural counties, we gathered rich data that illustrate the perceptions of those individuals situated within the rural milieu. The qualitative responses we received from victim advocates related to their experiences mediating and/or managing victim advocacy given the barriers they perceived.

Sample

We conducted interviews with IPV advocates from 16 contiguous rural counties within the Delta Region of the United States. As rural advocates may be spread over several surrounding counties (Donnelly et al., 1999), examining contiguous counties gave us the ability to consider coordinated advocacy across jurisdictions. The 16 counties are located within the Delta Region, one of the most disadvantaged rural regions in the United States (Delta Regional Authority, 2013). The counties in the region are overwhelmingly rural with the mean population density of 53.33 people per square mile (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). These counties also have a higher number of individuals who fall below the poverty line (range = 13.5-31.1; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 2010b), have a low median household income (M = US$37,803.13; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 2010a), and have a large portion of the population with less than a high school diploma (M = 18.65%; U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).

The sample of advocates were all female between the ages of 28 and 69 (median = 43). Seventy-six percent of them were White, considered themselves to be middle- or upper-middle class (62%), and had at least some college (92%). The most common marital status for the advocates was married (40%), followed by divorced or widowed (32%). The length of time the advocates had resided in the region ranged from 7 to 61 years (M = 30 years) and they had been working in the field anywhere between 10 months and 32 years (median = 9 years). The 25 advocates interviewed represented a variety of institutional settings such as legal, justice system, and shelter services. The vast majority of the participants were from shelter services (n = 17) while there was one advocate who worked within a police department and seven legal advocates serving domestic violence victims. Of the legal advocates, six worked in the state’s attorney’s office while one worked for a legal clinic serving economically disadvantaged domestic violence victims. The shelter advocates were located in seven different locations. The shelters were for victims of not only domestic violence, but also served victims of sexual assault and rape.

Procedure

To obtain the interviews, we first solicited approval from agency directors and then directly contacted the victim advocates. Twenty-eight advocacy locations were identified in the 16 counties with 37 advocates working at these locations. Of the 37 advocates, we were able to interview 25 victim advocates (67.5%) who worked at 20 of the 28 advocacy locations (71.4%). Twelve of the advocates were not interviewed due to the interviewer’s inability to contact them. In addition, we invited all of the advocates to a focus group discussion of the issues of rural victim advocacy. The focus group allowed us the opportunity to interview 6 of the advocates more intensely to qualitatively understand the advocate relationships. The 6 advocates who participated in the focus group were individuals from different shelters across the region. The focus group was held in a central location, although those advocates working in the counties furthest away did have a distance to travel. There was some overlap in the interview and focus groups perspective on the barriers. The focus group gave greater detail and specific examples on the barriers they faced while performing their job.

The telephone interviews with the advocates averaged 30 to 45 min and used a structured interview guide. Open- and closed-ended questions focused on their work experience, perceptions of the ecological context of their advocacy, and their responses to the challenges of rural advocacy (see Appendix A for sample of questions). The focus group lasted about 75 min and the conversation centered on the barriers the advocates face and their strategies for advocating despite these barriers (see Appendix B for sample of questions). The focus group differed from the interviews by allowing the advocates to speak in-depth about the issues that were found to be important from the phone interviews. The nature of the focus group was to build on the answers from the interviews and gain more detail and insight into what they believed to be barriers. The interviews and focus group were digitally recorded (with the participants’ permission) and transcribed. The Institutional Review Board approved the project prior to the interview process. To ensure anonymity, all names and places mentioned here are pseudonyms. During the interview process no real names were recorded, each interview was first given a number and then a pseudonym when the recording was transcribed. The analysis focuses on how advocates establish and manage their relationships with victims and criminal justice personnel within a rural ecological context.

The interviews consisted of 75 total questions. The first 11 questions asked about their demographics, the next 5 asked about their current position and what type of training they have received. The respondents were also questioned about their agency’s funding and other agencies in the area they worked with. There were also questions asking them about what services their agency offered for victims and which counties the agency served. These were followed by a series of questions asking the advocates about the culture in the community they serve and how much more difficult each of these community characteristics make working with their clients. Each advocate was asked about the people and the culture of the areas in which they work. They were asked to report how each of the ecological characteristics describe the people and communities in the area that they serve on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 10 (very true). If the respondent answered a 7 through 10, they were then asked a follow-up question. The follow-up question asked how much harder each of the characteristics made working with clients (see Appendix A for questions). The answers for the follow-up question ranged from 1 (not at all harder) to 10 (much harder). The characteristics addressed by the respondents varied because of the skip pattern (for a full explanation and analysis of the quantitative results see McGrath et al., 2012). For each of the follow-up questions, the respondent was asked to elaborate on his or her response. The interviews were concluded with 6 open-ended questions.

For the focus group, a discussion guide based on the interviews was used. At this point, we were interested in solutions and strategies to dealing with barriers to effective rural advocacy that were identified in the interviews (e.g., lack of resources, rural poverty, lack of privacy, victim-blaming attitudes, etc.). A member of the research team, who had received training in conducting focus group discussions, moderated while other members of the research team took notes, digitally recorded, and observed the discussion.

Coding of Data

The interviews and focus group recordings were transcribed verbatim and then analyzed using NVIVO 7, qualitative data software. Constant comparative method was used to make theoretically based generalizations from the data to inform other levels of data analysis and conceptual development (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The authors performed open, axial, and selective coding. Open coding involved the authors individually reviewing all transcribed interviews and focus groups to identify common categories across victim advocate responses. Some common codes found were barriers, lack of resources, lack of privacy, constructing victims as credible, drawing on acquaintances, personal relationships, relationship bank, negotiating boundaries, networking, problem solving, going beyond, re-education, courtroom workgroup, and social capital. This step acted as a measure of agreement among the coders in ascertaining the key points in the data. Axial coding was used to refine and collapse similar themes. This coding schema was used to identify the central phenomenon and establish connections between themes and emergent subthemes. At this point, the authors identified themes relating to structural barriers to advocacy (addressed by the authors in McGrath et al., 2012) as well as advocate relationships with clients, victim advocates, social service agencies, and the criminal justice system. The authors used selective coding to incorporate all categories into a core theme, allowing most central themes to materialize from the data. The core themes created, informal and formal victim advocate relationships with their clients and victim advocate relationships with criminal justice personnel were consistent with the research questions. As a result, the authors were able to develop a storyline of integrated themes to build an ecological framework explicating the relationships of rural victim advocates. To ensure themes were credible, transferable, dependable, and confirmable (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), verification strategies were used. The strategies included researcher agreement of themes and peer review. Two authors and a peer reviewer individually coded the transcripts and compared coding patterns and came to an agreement as to the coded themes and subthemes. The researchers had an 80% agreement on the coding schemes. Any discrepancies that were found were discussed by the authors and peer reviewer until an agreement was met.

Results

To effectively do their job, advocates develop strategies to form and maintain relationships with clients and others members of the criminal justice system; however, the structural constraints of rural areas were found to limit their ability to form relationships that would ensure victim safety. The present research focuses on the challenges faced by rural victim advocates and how their experiences shaped the strategies they use to address these challenges through the development and management of relationships. Taking as our framework the increasingly diffused concentric circles of the ecological model (see Figure 1), here we present the themes that emerged within victim advocates’ relationships to clients, first, then to criminal justice personnel. We highlight these two types of relationships (one at the microsystem level and the other at the exosystem level) because our respondents emphasized their experiences of managing and creating these relationships during our interviews. We further narrow the interpretive frame of criminal justice relationships into informal and formal relationships. We will first highlight how rural environment poses specific challenges to these relationships.

Figure 1.

Ecology of rural victim advocacy.

Barriers to Effective Rural Advocacy

As discussed previously, rural relationships differ from urban relationships due to the low population base and relationship density. Problems at the exosystem can influence the effectiveness of the microsystem advocate–client relationship. In rural areas, one issue is a lack of privacy among clients and advocates (Logan et al., 2004). As Tina [3 years of advocacy experience] illustrates, advocates sometimes perceive that the insular nature of rural areas coupled with its low population base leads to victims’ hesitancy to seek services, thus compounding their experiences of violence. Victims’ embarrassment to report is recognized across the urban–rural landscape; the key here is that avoidance of embarrassment is perceived to be more difficult in a domain where one’s discreditable identity (Goffman, 1963) can less effectively be hidden. Tina speaks of this in her interview: “There is an embarrassment thing that everyone is going to know your business and I think it keeps some from coming forward sometimes too . . . ” Furthermore, Sara [3 years of advocacy experience] notes that the “place” of advocacy in rural domains is affected by this lack of privacy. Thus, advocates find their professionalism taxed by having to vary the location and space of their interactions with their clients: “. . . we have met people at the library before or we have met people at people’s sister’s home because they have to because of privacy or not wanting their partner to know about it.”

Rural areas have been characterized as having an ideology of “taking care of one’s own” that facilitates the perception that home troubles are private troubles (Logan, Evans, Stevenson, & Jordan, 2005; McGrath et al., 2012). This ideology can also hinder the relationship between the client and the advocate because clients in the most rural communities find enhanced community and social pressure to avoid criminal justice engagement, even with the advocates:

I think that the victims in the smaller communities are sometimes, they feel more, they are more pressured into friends and family putting pressure on them to do things. They come in more often and wanting to drop the charges just to please other people.

In this interview excerpt, Tina gives a general example to illustrate what she sees as an attitude common to her rural area, resulting in her clients choosing to not air private troubles in public. In rural areas, although the advocate may be known to the family, she is still seen as a potential outsider. To mitigate the effects of this “private troubles” philosophy, it is important that the advocate build a relationship with the client.

As these characteristics of the client–advocate relationship describe, rural victim advocates often conceptualize this relationship as challenging not because of the clients themselves, but because of issues beyond the dyad, issues that are part of and reflective of the ecological environment: other individuals, the availability or lack thereof of resources, sociocultural expectations of privacy, familial responsibility, and so on. It is to these other relationships we now turn, focusing on advocates’ relationships with their clients and criminal justice personnel.

Victim Advocate Relationships With Clients

As advocates initiate their advocacy work, the microsystem-level relationships they develop and manage with their clients are both key to their success and necessary for their work. Advocates use various strategies to initiate strong relationships with clients and to manage their own activities within those relationships, relying on stereotypes and expectations of caregiving and morality mentioned above that dictate the type of work they do and how much they do. In this symbiotic relationship, clients and advocates create need for each other; meanwhile, advocates embody their titles by defending and mediating others’ perceptions and demands on victims. Yet these activities have a rural flavor: Advocates report few options for their clients and little privacy. Thus, advocates serve as a shield against values of the macrosystem, sometimes, a voice to exosystem agents, other times, and, at the microsystem level, a caregiver throughout.

Advocates and other care workers often feel it is important to build rapport with clients to facilitate their work (Kolb, 2011b). This is especially important in a rural environment where few advocates serve many clients. In the following interview excerpt, Heather [1 year of victim advocacy experience] describes gaining rapport with a client:

During one of . . . the conversations she brought up that she liked to paint and draw and that is one of the same hobbies I have. So over a period of time we would drift off of the subject upon talking about that and that hobby you know I would even bring some of my paintings in and she would bring hers in. I had a real hard time getting close to her but when she had found out that was something I had done it kind of opened the door. Within a period of time after that then our bond was made and she did follow through. So sometimes just by finding something that the victim is interested in where you can get the door open you know that way.

Heather reveals how she establishes the initial relationship between advocate and client by teasing out information from the client on common interests. This relationship is constructed as more helpful to the client when a more caring persona is utilized by the advocate.

In establishing a good rapport with the client, Sandy [years of service unidentified] revealed during the focus group that she believed that a good relationship with a client would help propel them out of an abusive domestic relationship. Advocates often build relationships in leading by example.

And I think you build that [relationship] with them and then eventually they leave for good they’ve got some more, um things to fall back on. Parenting even, and learning how to survive and a lot of times they’ll even try to mimic what you do, what you wear because they want to be more like you. They think you’ve come a long way in your life.

As Dunn and Powell-Williams (2007) discussed, victim advocates realize there are barriers that clients often have to overcome to be able to sustain themselves and their children. One of those barriers, as this advocate suggests, is not having a positive role model to imitate.

Sandy’s response in the focus group shows she feels her compassion is exemplified in situations where advocates are the only positive relationships some of their clients encounter, “[Our clients] appreciate [our compassion] I think very much. I think we’re, I think we’re the only family some of them have.” In identifying her relationship as familial, Sandy again personalizes the interaction between advocate and client.

The client–victim advocate relationship at the microlevel is symbiotic in that advocates need their clients to be seen as compassionate and the clients need advocates to authenticate their claims of violence or abuse to others (Kolb, 2011a). In the same conversation, another advocate, Dawn [focus group, more than 10 years of advocacy experience], even found herself in a position where she had to uphold the virtue of her client to others due to her position as a good person, “And I found myself, you know even though when I knew the client was wrong, I still found myself defending her to someone else [laughs].” The rural counties the advocates represent have a reputation for victim-blaming attitudes (McGrath et al., 2012). The prevalence of these attitudes offers multiple opportunities for advocates to emotionally and intellectually “take up” for their clients.

Erica’s comments in the focus group exemplify how advocates often go above and beyond the conventional duties of the position, performing other types of care work, to establish an effective relationship with a client. The tone of Erica’s comment during the focus group also implies victim advocates place a high value on care work (Kolb, 2011b). In order for victim advocates to develop successful relationships with their clients, they provide emotional and tactile care and support (Kolb, 2011b).

I think everybody at the table [has] probably put their neck on the chopping block for a client . . . But you know, you want it to work so bad and you want help them so much that you’re willing to go that extra mile. Do something, not take mileage for certain things, ya know, “Okay I’ll take you to the store.”

Erica was correct to assume that advocates often overextend themselves to assist their clients. Many advocates reported that they would do favors for their clients like providing transportation, searching for jobs, and locating a new place to stay after the client has left an abuser. Erica later said, “We are the Band-Aid.” Victim advocates’ relationships with clients are an adhesive to keep the client connected to other forms of community support. Advocates often serve as a mediator between clients and social service and criminal justice agencies, increasing clients’ comfort levels and improving the accessibility of such services. At the microsystem, rural advocates’ relationships with their clients are different and sometimes worse because of the nature of the environment. As exemplified above, rural advocates must make special concessions that urban centers generally are not forced to consider. While building a rapport with clients is essential to advocacy in urban areas as well, this is even more important in an area where the advocates are a part of the community and may have previous knowledge of the client, and/or their family. Rural advocates may also have more incentive to uphold the virtue of their clients, because the lack of anonymity and privacy in rural areas. In rural areas, a person’s “name” is more recognizable in casual conversation; reputations can be made or destroyed within a matter of moments as a result of the density of personal and professional networks.

Victim Advocate Relationships With Criminal Justice Personnel

Advocates charged with assisting their clients with escape, survival, and healing from and/or ending violent relationships often need to access resources and/or institutions at the exosystem level. In particular, those advocates manage and mediate their clients’ interactions with the criminal justice system and often, more than one component of this system. Not always easy, these informal and formal relationships were seen as vital and risky to advocates’ ability to fully meet the needs of their clients.

Informal relationships

Victim advocates often have to draw on relationships with the exosystem to facilitate advocacy. One strategy discussed by several of the advocates was the creation of informal relationships with criminal justice personnel. Evidence of this strategy came from the discourse used to describe the advocates’ interactions with these exosystem agency actors, for example, calling police officers “friends.” Other advocates reported taking advantage of open door policies, giving them flexible and negotiable access to potential sources of support for their clients and facilitating the development of an even stronger professional relationship. Angela [more than 25 years of advocacy experience] characterizes her relationship with the sheriff: “The sheriff is wonderful as far as open door policy, everything. We work a lot and it is a really good working relationship.” Sometimes these relationships can predate the criminal justice appointments. Joyce mentioned a similar case during the focus group: “. . . I went to school with [the district attorney] and . . . he was so serious . . . course now you get a couple of drinks in him and he loosens up.” The personal relationships that advocates cultivate before their current position allow them to use their relationship as social capital to obtain an audience with prominent members of the rural community where others may not have the opportunity.

Victim advocates occasionally reported feeling like their advocacy positions limited them within their rural justice system. Opportunities for informal interactions, then, were opportunities for advocates to present themselves as available resources, “do[ing] whatever [they] can to help.” Lyn, like many other rural advocates, works directly with the state’s attorney, sheriff, and local judge. She notes that knowing a judge or officer can speed up or smooth out victim advocacy at times. Dawn recounts in her interview, an instance where her personal relationship with criminal justice personnel could be used to her advantage:

Overall though they don’t hard nose me or make me feel uncomfortable although we don’t always see things the same. I feel that I can call the judge and pull him to the side to explain my point of view. Whether it will change anything or not I don’t know but I do feel comfortable talking to him even if we don’t see eye to eye.

Erica (focus group) uses her connections with officers to aid her clients: “I’ve my friends at the Sheriff’s Department. I can take her number and she’ll have somebody there within minutes.” Note in this quote that the police officer “friend” is female. Very few of the respondents mentioned female officers, attorneys or judges in their rural domains with whom they work. This is not surprising given that the criminal justice system is extremely gendered in rural areas (Websdale, 1998).

But, the density of working relationships and the fluidity of informal relationships can help or hinder advocates’ work. Consider Dawn’s story from our focus group:

I met the chief of police. He started to come into my office and said “Did you do the order for so-and-so” and I said “Yeah.” He said “Oh, well he’s a good old boy, hard-working man, yeah he can get a little violent sometimes, but he’s real good. He’s a good guy. He don’t mean anything, nothing.” And I said “He beats his wife.” [The chief replied] “Well, yeah but, he can have a tendency to be violent, but I don’t think she should have went to the state.” You know they [the police] done been to that house so many times, you know, so she ended up having to drop because he was well known in the area, he did have a good job and he would lose his job and he’s [the police chief] trying to sell me on why she should not have this order [of] protection.

There are dyads in this story: the client and the advocate, the advocate and the chief, and the chief and the client’s abuser. In some ways, the advocate’s position as a victim advocate creates a barrier between the chief and the victim, thus he is neither beholden to the victim nor her needs. Instead, the established personal and professional relationship between the advocate and the chief allows the chief to help his friend by attempting to divert the advocate from her advocacy duties. That this exchange took place in the advocate’s office in a domestic violence shelter is even more poignant. While the dialogue appears to be two professionals arguing about the moral identity of the man/abuser, note that the guilt of the offender is not in question. Thus, this narrative shows the risks of close relationships between advocates and justice personnel.

Formal relationships

Informal relationships that the advocates have with those in the criminal justice system are then used to build the formal relationships. The acceptance of rural macrosystem-level patriarchal values (Logan et al., 2004) by justice system personnel was perceived to hinder a good working relationship with victim advocates, creating the need for fewer informal and more professional working relationships. These values are often counterproductive to effective victim advocacy, to reduce these attitudes, advocates take it on themselves to educate criminal justice personnel about the errors of victim-blaming attitudes and the damages they cause.

Some advocates were adamant that traditionally sexist attitudes made their jobs almost impossible, particularly when held by key players in criminal justice. As Maria [more than 10 years of advocacy experience] noted in her interview: “[Traditional gender role] beliefs make domestic violence acceptable. Judges who have that mind-set do not understand what is going on. They do not understand that domestic violence is a real issue.” Advocates attempt to alter these attitudes by establishing microsystem-level professional relationships with key actors. Then, advocates use these relationships with law enforcement and other criminal justice personnel to try to change victim blaming or sexist beliefs through training and conversation. In her interview, Rachel [more than 10 years advocacy experience] discusses a conversation she had with a local judge:

We have had meetings with [the judge] and took him to lunch and tried to say you know explain domestic violence to him but he still has this attitude that he wouldn’t have done this if she hadn’t of done this or done that. He is a victim blamer so that makes it hard to change the judge’s mind.

Victim blaming in the criminal justice system is a theme that surfaced frequently in advocate interviews. These attitudes are not conducive to fair treatment of many victims, especially in a small town where the perpetrator and/or family members of the accuser are well known within the community. One of the hardest parts of a victim advocate’s job is to confront victim-blaming judges and police officers. As Melissa [more than 5 years of advocacy experience] describes in her interview, sometimes advocates choose not to confront:

The older officers . . . most of them are not going to change; the ones that have been there and they have a mentality and that is what it is going to be. As they get new officers I try to go back in if I can get in.

The victim blaming is so debilitating at times that victim advocates have to persuade officers to respond to domestic violence service calls. The “good old boys network” mentality of rural areas makes responding to interpersonal violence and other calls of a “private” nature more of a personal decision because of the officer’s relationship with the victim or perpetrator. Melissa recalls her story:

. . . one of my clients has an order of protection and the person she has the orders of protection against violates it and she calls the police department. The police department won’t respond to it, then I can’t get out there and make them do their jobs and it frustrates the process because if they won’t take complaints then we can’t go through the [criminal justice] system.

To combat the problem of victim blaming, advocates often provide training so criminal justice personnel can see the indicators and effects of these attitudes on the victims of abuse. Sudderth (2006) discussed this as one of two forms of victim advocacy: raising awareness of domestic abuse in the criminal justice system. The education advocates provide to criminal justice personnel can be seen as an alternative, though sometimes integrated, strategy for relationship development compared with the informal processes. For advocates, training is a way to demonstrate their professional competence, while also establishing strong working relationships with those being trained. For instance, in our interview, Meredith [more than 5 years of advocacy experience] identified her goal as an advocate is to facilitate working relationships through training and education on IPV:

We try to get in there and we try to maintain good working relationships with the circuit clerks and the state’s attorney and the local law enforcement in each county we do offer [training] . . . we can work together to ensure that the victims of domestic violence are being served properly . . .

Lyn [more than 5 years of advocacy experience] is similar to Meredith in her goals. Lyn hopes that training a few will spread the idea to more within the perspective agency:

We try to do a lot of education with the key players you know and I work really hard to win over the state’s attorney and the sheriffs and the judges and the ER directors and kind of hoping for that trickledown effect and you know working to effect that greater system change.

Lyn’s story is an example of how advocates seek and gain entry into exosystem agencies through their use of, in this case, professional roles and relationships. Similarly, during her interview, Joyce discussed how it is often an advocate’s obligation to conduct training and coordination in the criminal justice system, establishing relationships that allow them to both educate actors about victim issues and bring together important players to expand the support system for their clients:

They [police officers and judges] work in the criminal justice system but it doesn’t make them an expert on domestic violence victims and that is where we come in as far as education. And we also have in place a task force for our different counties and it is hard to get them all to the table once or twice a year . . .

The reoccurring theme that criminal justice personnel need to be educated may also be a cry for the advocates to be heard in these imbalanced relationships. Sherri offers her business card so that she can be just a phone call away. Instead of relying on the bureaucracy to place victims encountered by police in an advocate’s care, police officers have direct access to an advocate to come to the victim’s aid:

My home phone number is on my business card, I just want those people that I am working with to know that they have access to me at any time and not just when I am at the office.

The excerpts above express positive relationships with criminal justice personnel, making it easier to get advocacy work done.

Although victim advocates often create formal bonds with criminal justice personnel in urban areas, many rural advocates have the advantage (or disadvantage) of knowing these officers, prosecutors, and judges in informal contexts as well. The knowledge of personal nuances of these criminal justice actors can sometimes be used as leverage to facilitate a good working relationship; other times the density of rural networks can complicate rural advocates’ attempts to obtain justice for their clients. The pervasiveness of victim-blaming attitudes in these rural communities can also produce problems for advocates attempting to cultivate formal relationships with criminal justice personnel.

Conclusion

Rural characteristics affect rural victim advocacy primarily by creating challenges, but sometimes by creating opportunities for advocates. Here, we assess the viability of an ecological model of victim advocacy and analyze how rural victim advocates mediate the challenges of their rural domain. Our findings suggest that microsystem-level relationships can be managed by advocates to access resources within the exosystem to benefit victim clients.

The symbiotic relationship between advocates and their clients creates an advocate identity centered on protecting victims’ privacy, credibility, and safety. To do their jobs, advocates develop relationship strategies, but structural constraints of rural areas limit the resources they can use to enhance advocate–client relationships and victim safety. At the same time, the personal nature of these interactions creates additional work for advocates.

Advocates’ interactions with criminal justice personnel began either as informal, flexible relationships or as professional obligations (e.g., training). Regardless of the origin, our respondents saw the establishment of ongoing relationships with these exosystem actors as vital to their ability to do their jobs. Informal relationships with criminal justice personnel could provide instant and beneficial support for victims, but advocates had to be careful to not accept nor perpetuate the gendered and victim-blaming attitudes they often faced by establishing themselves as experts of victim advocacy and client services. Formally, advocates who provide training to criminal justice personnel have an opportunity to demonstrate expertise while they widen their social networks.

We further explored how rural advocates’ behavior can be “shaped and constrained” (Granovetter, 1973, p. 1370) by their relationships with clients and criminal justice personnel. Advocates personalized their relationships with victims, using commonalities, familial norms, and moral representations of themselves as caregivers and role models. Yet to facilitate victims’ safety, advocates had to move beyond these victim relations to create social capital through personal and professional relationships with criminal justice actors. Two issues seem particularly relevant here. First, the organizational structures of both advocacy and criminal justice are gendered (Risman, 2004). According to Nichols (2011), “gendered institutional structures affect those who work with [domestic violence organizations] (such as police), within them (such as advocates), and those served by them (battered women)” (p. 112). The patriarchal structure of the criminal justice system at the exosystem level, which embodies macrosystem values of victim blaming, often conflicts with the ideals of feminist-oriented advocates. Second, social context—the rural environment—is key. Rural areas are characterized by dense relationships, where knowing others’ business is essential to “taking care of one’s own.” Advocates within this rural domain negotiate their work and their relationships aware of these sociocultural expectations. This awareness encourages further effort to establish and manage their relationships across the ecological domain.

This study adds to the literature on victim advocacy by focusing on rural areas. The current findings increase our understanding of rural advocates’ relationships through the ecological model. The research also has implications for policy affecting rural advocates and their workgroup. As policy makers understand the importance of rural advocates’ collaborative relationships with clients, service providers and law enforcement, funds can be allocated to training and opportunities to enhance the quality of rural victim advocacy. Increased funding in rural areas for the institutions, organizations, and agencies at the exosystem level could mediate barriers that advocates face in trying to help their clients. Enhanced training and interaction among the different agencies that provide support for the victims could benefit advocates when working with clients. Forming collaborative workgroups that contain members from the social service agencies, law enforcement, and the courts may reduce some of the barriers that advocates’ experience while helping their clients.

Although there are several strengths to the article, there are some limitations. Despite the high percentage of advocates interviewed in our target area, these results should not be generalized to all rural victim advocates. Some rural advocates may engage their relationships with clients and criminal justice personnel differently based on the perception of how much these relationships matter to performing their job effectively.

Future research should examine prevention and intervention work of advocates on the microsystem and exosystem levels. If values of the macrosystem are the structural cause of the barriers to effective victim advocacy, what strategies can rural advocates use to minimize its effects? Also, the strategies advocates use to develop and maintain their sense of moral identity should be explored. Last, more information on the rural courtroom workgroup should be gathered to tease out how advocates fit in at this level.

Footnotes

Appendix A

Appendix B

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was funded, in part, by the Center for Rural Violence and Justice Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Author Biographies

Melencia Johnson, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of South Carolina at Aiken. Her main research interests include women and girls’ involvement in crime and interpersonal violence.

Shelly A. McGrath, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Justice Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her main research interests include interpersonal violence, homicide, and victimization. Her most recent publications are in Journal of Community Psychology, Security Journal, American Journal of Criminal Justice, and Aggression and Violent Behavior.

Michelle Hughes Miller, PhD, is an associate professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Florida. Her research centers on issues of legal, social, and political definitions of women as criminals and as victims, particularly definitions of mothers who are evaluated by the legal system.

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