The Dark Side of the Ivory Tower

Book excerpt: A cursory reading of the history of U.S. colleges and universities reveals that violence, vice, and victimization - campus crime - has been part of collegiate life since the Colonial Era. It was not until the late 1980s - some 250 years later - that campus crime suddenly became an issue on the public stage. Drawing from numerous mass media and scholarly sources and using a theoretical framework grounded in social constructionism, The Dark Side of the Ivory Tower chronicles how four groups of activists - college student advocates, feminists, victims and their families, and public health experts - used a variety of tactics and strategies to convince the public that campus crime posed a new danger to the safety and security of college students and the Ivory Tower itself, while simultaneously convincing policymakers to take action against the problem. Readers from a range of disciplinary interests, campus security professionals, and informed citizens will find the book both compelling and valuable to understanding campus crime as a newly constructed social reality.