Daughter headed to college? Watch out for serial rapists.

When I was leaving for college, my older sister told me to "Stay away from the upper classmen--they prey on freshman girls."* And they do, according to a recent NPR report about college date rape. Freshman women--often vulnerable, less experienced with alcohol, and looking to fit in--are the women mostly likely to be sexually assaulted on campus. 
       Maybe that's not surprising. But what is surprising is that many of the college men committing these assaults are actually serial rapists. While one common myth has been that college date rape is often a one-time "bad decision" by a drunken perpetrator, in fact, that's not the case. Serial predators account for nine out of 10 rapes on college campuses. This is according to research done by psychologist David Lisak of the University of Massachusetts, in which he interviewed 2,000 college men ...
over a period of 20 years. And colleges often don't take these crimes seriously, sometimes blaming the victim (if drunk) or treating the incident as just bad behavior and not a crime. A report by The Center for Public Integrity claims that while one in five women will be sexually assaulted during her college years, the students found responsible for these assaults "often face little or no punishment." 
       So read up on these depressing reports, and make sure your daughter does, too, so she can be on the look out. Women should also be encouraged to report these crimes to the local police, even if discouraged from doing so by the student health center staff. Remember, that cute guy your daughter meets over beers at the frat party might just be a serial rapist.

* Did I listen to her advice? No--I started dating an upper classman the first week I arrived. Fortunately, however, he understood what "no" meant.