It is recognizing the lion and not putting your head between its jaws. Once you have the basic information on how criminals operate, this is both simple and easy to do. The reason we use the term 'rational' is that your safety is determined not in anger, fear , taking karate, owning a gun, aggressiveness or blind arrogance, but instead on calm rational decisions based on commitment to yourself , knowledge of your boundaries , recognition of a threat and the acceptance of the responsibility for your own well being. Nearly 20,000 people are murdered in the United States every year. The same can be said of the thousands of women who are raped every year.
Nobody walks out the door with the intention of being victimized.
Yet millions of people are every year. Situations spin out of control, and people, who thought they could handle themselves, are hurt. The first step in solving a problem is understanding it. And that means learning what problem is rather than what we assume it is. It is speculated that up to 80 percent of murder victims knew their killer.