Approximately 7 million rape survivors are estimated to reside in New York State. Nearly 1 in 5 women, and 1 in 71 men are raped at some point during their lives.

Rape is the second most expensive crime, behind only murder, estimated that each incidence of rape costs $151,425 in 2008 dollars.

Despite these devastating numbers and prevalence, New York State Funding to Rape Crisis Programs has decreased by 25% since 2007. In the last two years, the total number of clients served by Rape Crisis Programs state-wide has increased by 65%.

As a result, these programs have had to decrease their services by implementing waiting lists for counseling, support groups and other follow-up services. Some programs can no longer maintain 24-hour intervention services. Every rape survivor deserves acute care and should not have to wait.

Our request for the increased budget from $3.4 to $7.4 million would allocate an additional $55,000 funding per program. These funds would go toward intervention services for their increased caseloads as well as prevention efforts which urge changes in attitudes and behaviors that lead to sexual assault.

In addition to signing this petition, you can also do a couple of other things:

1. Tweet Tweet Tweet!

"$7.4m funding for Rape Crisis Programs! No Rape Survivor Should Wait! @HealthNYGov @NYGovCuomo @kemphannon @JohnDeFrancisco @LindaBRosenthal"

2. Let your voice heard by directly calling and emailing your local Senator and Assembly Member:

Find your local Senator here and contact them to let them know about your concern: http://www.nysenate.gov/senators

Find your local Assembly Member here and contact them to let them know about your concern: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?sh=search