People in American society are socialized to fear the stranger. Thus, the general population (including police officers) largely fear strangers and have greater feelings of fear about crimes committed by strangers. However, criminological research, as well as crime statistics, has revealed that men are most often victimized by strangers while women are most often the victims of crimes perpetrated by family, friends, or acquaintances. This is interesting given the fact that by and large, our criminal justice system is set up to protect people from crimes committed by strangers. Therefore, the authors posit that official responses to crime are more oriented toward protecting men than women. They contend that the type of crime response typical in American society is irrelevant to protecting women from victimization. Several recommendations are offered that would change police training practices and crime response tactics, including training on the significant differences in the characteristics of stranger crime versus acquaintance crime. References