Party School: Crime, Campus, and Community

On the basis of extensive on-site research, Karen G. Weiss offers a case study of crime victimization at an American "party school" that reverberates beyond a single campus. She argues that today's party school--usually a large public university with a big sports program and an active Greek life--represents a unique environment that nurtures and rewards extreme drinking, which in turn increases the risks of victimization and normalizes bad behavior of students who are intoxicated. Weiss shows why so many students voluntarily place themselves at risk, why so few crimes are reported to police, and why victims often shrug off their injuries and other negative consequences as the acceptable cost of admission to a party.