Unsafe in the Ivory Tower: The Sexual Victimization of College Women

An unprecedented look at college women′s risks of and experiences with sexual victimization

Unsafe in the Ivory Tower examines the nature and dimensions of a salient social problem―the sexual victimization of female college students today, and how women respond when they are, in fact, sexually victimized. The authors discuss the research that scholars have conducted to illuminate the origins and extent of this controversial issue as well as what can be done to prevent it. Students and other interested readers learn about the nature of victimization while simultaneously gaining an understanding of the ways in which criminologists, victimologists, and social scientists conduct research that informs theory and policy debates.

Key Features

• Provides detailed information about sexual victimization on college campuses today
• Introduces broad lessons about the interactions of ideology, science and methodology, and public policy
• Integrates current data, research, and theory, based on the authors′ national studies of more than 8,000 randomly selected female college students

Intended Audience

This supplemental text is ideal for courses such as Sex Crimes, Violence and Abuse, Victimology, Gender and Crime, Sociology of Violence, Sociology of Women, and the Sociology of Sex and Gender in departments of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, and women′s studies. It is also useful for those involved in studying or creating public policy related to this issue and for those interested in sexual victimization on campuses generally.

Bonnie S. Fisher is a Professor in the Division of Criminal Justice and Research Fellow in the Center for Criminal Justice Research at the University of Cincinnati. Professor Fisher received her Ph.D. (1988) in Political Science from Northwestern University. She is a nationally recognized expert in the areas of sexual, violent and stalking victimization of college women, including repeat victimization, self-protection effectiveness, and fear of crime, and how post-secondary schools’ respond to reports of sexual victimization. She has authored more than 150 publications in national and international peer-reviewed criminology, criminal justice, crime prevention, gerontology, legal, medical, methodological, nursing, urban planning, public administration, psychology, security, and victimology periodicals. She also has edited three volumes that focus on victimization issues: Encyclopedia of Victimology and Crime Prevention; Campus Crime (with Steven P. Lab); Legal, Social and Political Perspectives, 2^nd edition (with John Sloan, III); Violence Against Women and Family Violence; and Developments in Research, Practice, and Policy. She has been the co-editor of the Security Journal since 1998. She has served as the Deputy Editor of Justice Quarterly and since 2008 has been the Associate Editor of the Journal of Research Crime and Delinquency. She has been the Principal Investigator or Co-PI on several U.S. Department of Justice grants examining a range of college student victimization issues and on a grant from the British Home Office to examine college student victimization in the East Midlands, United Kingdom. Currently she is a Co-PI on a National Institute of Health grant examining forensic sexual examinations and the use of digital images and staining techniques to enhance the detection of injuries and the use of digital images in decision making among the police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and juries in the criminal justice process.

Leah E. Daigle is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. She received her PhD in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati in 2005. Her most recent research has centered on repeat sexual victimization of college women and responses women use during and after being sexually victimized. Her other research interests include the development and continuation of offending and victimization across the life course. She is author of Victimology: A Text/Reader and Victimology: The Essentials, coauthor of Introduction to Criminology: Theories, Methods, and Criminal Behavior, Criminals in the Making: Criminality Across the Life Course, and Unsafe in the Ivory Tower: The Sexual Victimization of College Women, which was awarded the 2011 Outstanding Book Award by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. She has also published numerous peer-reviewed articles that have appeared in outlets such as Justice Quarterly, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and Victims and Offenders.

Francis T. Cullen is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Associate in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati, where he also holds a joint appointment in sociology. He received a Ph.D. (1979) in sociology and education from Columbia University. Professor Cullen has published more than 500 works in the areas of criminological theory, corrections, white-collar crime, public opinion, sexual victimization, and the criminology of Donald Trump. He is author of Rethinking Crime and Deviance Theory: The Emergence of a Structuring Tradition and is coauthor of Reaffirming Rehabilitation, Correctional Theory: Context and Consequences, Environmental Corrections: A New Paradigm for Supervising Offenders in the Community, Criminology, Communities and Crime: An Enduring American Challenge, Corporate Crime Under Attack: The Ford Pinto Case and Beyond, Combating Corporate Crime: Local Prosecutors at Work, Unsafe in the Ivory Tower: The Sexual Victimization of College Women, and Confronting School Violence: A Synthesis of Six Decades of Research. He also is coeditor of Criminological Theory: Past to Present―Essential Readings, Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological Theory, The Origins of American Criminology, Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory, The Oxford Handbook of Criminological Theory, Challenging Criminological Theory: The Legacy of Ruth Rosner Kornhauser, Sisters in Crime Revisited: Bringing Gender Into Criminology, Delinquency and Drift Revisited: The Criminology of David Matza and Beyond, Deterrence, Choice, and Crime: Contemporary Perspectives, The Oxford Handbook of White-Collar Crime, The American Prison: Imagining a Different Future, and Crime and Victimization in the Trump Era. Professor Cullen is a Past President of the American Society of Criminology and of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. In 2010, he received the ASC Edwin H. Sutherland Award. In 2013, he was honored by his alma mater, Bridgewater State University, with a Doctorate in Public Service. He was selected as the Winner of the 2022 Stockholm Prize in Criminology.