The Danger From Strangers

What measures should we take to safeguard ourselves against criminal assault? In a recent report on crime in the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that someone is the victim of an aggravated assault every 29 seconds; every 5 minutes, a person is forcibly raped; and every 21 minutes, a citizen is murdered. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the chances of being the victim of a violent crime are greater than those of being hurt in a traffic accident. Confronted with the dramatic media attention paid daily to violent crime, Americans are searching for ways to reduce the risk of victimization.
The Danger from Strangers: Confronting the Threat of Assault is the ideal handbook for self-protection; it acutely examines current trends in criminal behavior and victim response, and explains practical techniques citizens can use to avoid harm. James D. Brewer, an experienced victimologist and self-defense consultant, presents the best and most recent psychological, criminal justice, and security research available, in particular the mind, motivations, and methods of an assailant; the "street-proof" precautions needed to avoid a confrontation; the changes in behavior of victims or near-victims; the "vincibility scale": measure how attractive you are to a criminal; the dangerous threats to children, the aged, and the handicapped; the differences between forceful and non-forceful resistance; and the pros and cons of carrying or using weapons for self-defense.
Unlike numerous books devoted to defending yourself during a confrontation, Brewer's primer outlines how to avoid a criminal assault before it escalates to violence. This invaluable guide draws lessons from revealing interviews with victims and criminals, and synthesizes the best advice of crime researchers, psychologists, and self-defense professionals.
The Danger from Strangers is an extraordinarily relevant book for sociologists, criminologists, psychologists, behavioral therapists, psychiatrists, demographers, and current affairs analysts studying emotional and environmental factors that make a person vulnerable to a criminal act and the motivations provoking stranger assault. By reading and practicing the conflict avoidance exercises brilliantly articulated in this book, everyone will gain confidence and recover some of the quality of life that the rampant fear of crime has stolen away.

Brewer, editor-in-chief of Armor magazine, here stresses that the responsibility for protecting oneself against assaults lies with the individual. He presents a statistical chart profiling a victim and his vulnerabilities, such as alcohol use and hours worked. There's also a scorecard to enable readers to judge their own "vincibility," the likelihood they will be chosen as victims. Brewer discusses the strategies that a victim of assault might use, such as whether, during a mugging or a rape, one should fight back or surrender. Although he includes a wealth of anecdotes and interviews with victims and criminals, Brewer is such a clinical writer that his study will be of interest primarily to professional victimologists.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.