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Contrary to the image of college campuses as “ivory towers,” the victimization of college students recently has been portrayed as a serious problem deserving policy intervention. Based on interviews designed after the National Crime Victimization Survey, which were conducted with 3,472 randomly selected students across 12 institutions, we examined both the level and sources of students'victimization. More than one‐third of the sample reported being victims during the 1993–94 academic year. Informed by the lifestyle‐routine activities approach, the analysis revealed that the risk of property victimization was increased by proximity to crime, target attractiveness, exposure, and lack of guardianship. The main predictor of violent victimization was a lifestyle that included high levels of partying on campus at night and the recreational use of drugs.

Descriptive analyses of campus police agencies reveal that agencies' tactical and operational features are similar to those found in municipal agencies. The problem is that none of these studies have examined, using multivariate models, the structural characteristics of these organizations. Using LEMAS data collected in 1995, this study answered two main questions: what are the organizational characteristics of campus police agencies; and what factors, both internal and external, explain variation in the structural dimensions of the agencies. The results indicated that campus police agencies possess the same structural characteristics of municipal police agencies identified by 40 years of police organizational research, and internal agency characteristics were most important in explaining variation in the organizations' structural dimensions. The degree to which campus agencies have adopted organizational structures that are similar to those of municipal police is discussed and framed within an institutional perspective.In 1996, there were 1,316 "specialized" police agencies operating in the USA, constituting nearly 10 percent of all US police agencies (http://www.ojp.usdoj. gov/bjs/lawenf.htm), yet police researchers know little about them. This situation is surprising, given the fact such agencies are common and officers working for them typically have full arrest powers, are authorized to use force (including deadly force) against suspects, and in some cases, operate in

Research Summary:Using panel data from 188 large cities during 1980-1999, we examined the possible homicide promoting effects of "three-strikes" laws. Results indicated that cities in states with three-strikes laws experienced short-term increases in homicide rates of 13% to 14% and longterm increases of 16% to 24% compared with cities in states without the laws. Policy Implications:Our results emphasize the fact that rarely are the possible unintended negative consequences of policy directives considered and point to the need for policy makers to consider both intended and unintended consequences of policy directives before the directives are codified.Intuitively, most people, and lately most legislators, presume that lengthy imprisonment, determinate sentencing, mandatory minimum sentencing, and severe habitual offender laws offer safety along with retribution. But as criminologists and other social scientists have often shown, intuition alone isn't a sound basis for judging what will or won't work, at what cost, and with what side effects [emphasis added] (Skolnick, 1995:3). Facing intense public pressure to address the problem of high violent crime rates in the late 1980s and early 1990s, policy makers responded by strengthening existing laws targeting repeat offenders. Between 1993 and 1996, a total of 25 states and the federal government enacted what are * We thank Thomas Marvel1 and Francis T. Cullen for their encouragement and assistance with this project, but note that we alone bear responsibility for any errors remaining in the paper. Send correspondence to Tomislav V. Kovandzic,

In the late 1980s, celebrated victimizations of college students and grassroots efforts by victims and their families prompted Congress to pass the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act of 1990 that requires postsecondary institutions to disseminate crime statistics for their campuses annually. Using data from a victimization study of more than 3,400 college students, the authors examine whether statistics generated by this policy initiative provide an accurate portrait of on-campus crime. Results of their analyses cast serious doubt on the validity and reliability of the statistics generated by the act.