Stopping Violence Against Women

In the real world, we don’t know what we don’t know. The following data should be interpreted with caution because there are individual and personal factors that influence the reporting of both sexual and non-sexual assaults. Our knowledge is based solely on what our students or their families have reported to us.

The Department of Justice Reports approximately 20% of women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime in the United States (Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998). Various rape crises centers report victimization rates much higher with carried reporting rates around 10% of survivors report the crime to police. Many survivors of sexual assault have a greater chance of being victimized repetitively, which has been confirmed by many of our students who shared their situations that involved prior histories of being assaulted in a variety of ways (child molestation, street groping, rape, intimate partner violence, stalking, and robbery).

A suggestive anecdote, but not statistically confirmed, occurred in one county where Model Mugging founder Matt Thomas also trained the local law enforcement as well as women from the Rape Crisis Center. There were 26 rapes reported to law enforcement, but over 600 rapes were reported to the Rape Crisis Center, where the victims did NOT choose to report their rapes to law enforcement. Accuracy may be questioned because incidents reported to the crisis center may be duplicated if a survivor calls on separate occasions and speaks to different advocates. Additionally, survivors may call for assistance long after the crime occurred.

There are many types of aggression towards women, and sometimes incidents may not satisfy the legal elements defining rape that determine what law enforcement lists in a specific crime category. Regardless of the significant difference in what was reported to the police compared to the crisis center, it is unknown how many rapes occurred that were not reported to anyone. Unfortunately, those survivors kept the crime silent.

The above anecdote also demonstrates there is no surefire method to obtain accuracy for measuring crime. Additionally, there is not a surefire way to measure the impact crime prevention and self-defense have on various crimes, especially violent crimes against women.

Based on our students’ reports, a Model Mugging graduate’s chance of being sexually assaulted is significantly lower than that of women without proper self-defense training. Well over 100,000 women have graduated from Model Mugging Self Defense courses worldwide. The vast majority of students never reported assaults afterward.

More than 1000 Model Mugging graduates who were threatened with assault stopped their assailants with just their voices and body language without resorting to violence. Incidents reported back to us a total of 231 graduates who were involved in a physical attack since taking the program on an average of 2 ½ years after graduating. Of the 231 reported assaults, 224 (97%) graduates successfully fought off their attacker.

From what we know from those graduates of Model Mugging programs, only seven students reported that they were victimized. These Model Mugging graduates all survived, which is a significant victory. If a student were murdered, then it would be impossible for her to report this, but we can only report what is reported back to us. We don’t know what we don’t know.

We know of only seven (3%) of our students who did not stop the assault. These cases are described in the order of their occurrence, dating back to the early 1970s.

Two students, in separate incidences, were confronted by armed assailants where one assailant used a gun and the other used a knife. Both of these survivors were intimidated by the weapon and chose not to fight but to surrender and pacify their assailants. These two women did not take the Advance course that deals with an armed assailant. They survived and, therefore, made the correct decision in their perilous situation.

The third student was hit over the head with a club-like object from behind, knocked unconscious, and sexually assaulted but wasn’t raped. The fourth student was physically attacked on a transit bus and was physically beaten but not sexually assaulted. This was a hate crime, and she won the initial confrontation after the criminal punched her in the face. However, she physically stopped after shoving him off the bus, and then asked the bus driver to assist by closing the bus doors. The driver refused to assist, and the attacker returned to the bus after her. He repeatedly rammed her head into a metal post, knocking her unconscious. Additionally, she worked as a security guard. She later expressed confusion about her options regarding the “neutralization of a threat” (rules of using force) and her right to protect herself, which came at the expense of her safety.

A mentally ill juvenile client blitzed the fifth graduate and chose to curl into a protective position until the client’s father pulled him off of her within five seconds. The sixth case may be placed in either category. She did successfully fight off the assailant, but her case may also be argued that she was raped before she escaped, so we reluctantly list it here. She was drugged with Rohypnol in a bar, woke up in the middle of her rape, fought off her assailant, and then escaped. We teach students that they can fight back at any time during the assault. This woman recovered cognitive awareness and was able to use her skills to fight back. In the seventh case, a student’s mother reported that her daughter froze and did not fight off her assailant. Unfortunately, we have no further details. Again, these graduates all survived, which was a significant victory.

We don’t have a statistically relevant control group of untrained women of the same age, socioeconomic status, occupations, etc. Over 40 years, even harder to calculate is the factor that some of graduates have had different numbers of years after taking Model Mugging each with various histories and levels of training. Some took the course over 40 years ago, while others took it just recently. Applying gross estimates, for example, if a woman lives to be 80, then using the 20% of DOJ statistics of the odds that a woman would be attacked in her lifetime, it could be estimated that 10,000 might have been attacked (1/2 of 80 years of 100,000 is 50,000 x 20% = 10,000). In contrast, only 1,000 of our students were threatened with assault or physical attack. Using these numbers Model Mugging may have a 90% reduction in preventing assaults.

Of those 1,000 students threatened and assaulted, over 800 were able to prevent victimization by just their voice, boundary setting, and conflict resolution skills. They demonstrated the best self-defense, the art of winning without resorting to violence. Of the 231 known fights, our students won 224, or a 97% success rate in street combat.

Of the 214 women who did fight back, about 40% forced the assailant to flee, and about 60% won by incapacitating the assailant to have time to get to safety.

Of the known histories of 100,000 students spanning over 50 years and involving only 7 cases, this indicates a 99.995% success rate in preventing victimizations.

However, again, we don’t know what we don’t know.

 

There Are Never Any Guarantees:

Fighting back is the most effective way for women to stop an attack. Fighting back will not guarantee success, and the consequences could result in severe injury and even death. But that holds for the other three general options as well. Women who have fought back, both avoiders and survivors, commonly feel better about themselves when recovering. Women who were successful in fighting off an assailant may still feel and suffer the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), specifically the rape trauma syndrome, but with one difference: these women were victorious and won!

Resisting physically to escape is not always successful and can be dangerous. A common misnomer is still taught in programs for women. Model Mugging teaches women the full spectrum of options, providing them with more knowledge and experience to apply what they deem most appropriate for their situation. We receive comments, “Why not run away after you strike him?” “He’s down, then why keep kicking him?” Why not stand up and stomp/soccer kick or just run away?” The answers to these questions are easily identifiable when applying the Five Principles to Self Defense©.

In our Model Mugging study done in 2000, we found that less than 20% of women ran away during the assault, and the assailant caught 25% of the runners. When Matt Thomas performed his original study in 1971, he did not analyze this option in detail. Again, Model Mugging continuously strives to arm students with realistic information and strategies they can then apply best to their specific situation.

Knocking the assailant down does not mean the same as knocking him out. You are not safe until you have decisively rendered the assailant unconscious and have enough time to get to a secure location. Even then, he may regain consciousness and chase you. Alternatively, he may run away before you can finish him off, but you cannot count on that, and you must still be cautious because an assailant may pretend to run away only to return and attack you again (Thomas, 1995).

A student, who had only attended 2/3s of her classes in a University Model Mugging course against a single unarmed assailant (78% of the reported incidences), was attacked in a city overseas where the assailants often slit the eyes of their rape victims to avoid identification, by a gang of adult males of a different race so it was also a hate crime. Most of the criminals in that country are well-armed and have Martial Arts training to survive attacks by other gangs. She feigned submission, allowing her to surprise the leader with a heel palm to the nose while shouting “No!” as she had been taught in class. He fell backward to the ground and appeared to be knocked out. His accomplices fled in one direction, and the student fled in another.

In class, she was taught to finish the fight and assess the situation because, in this case, the leader recovered from her knockdown strike and chased her over 200 yards, only to tackle her from behind. She was severely injured by her impact against the ground from being tackled when running at full speed on the concrete. Still, she fought, which became the closest to a “psycho-mugger” (that we are aware of) whom any of our students have faced in real life. Because she had been trained in a high adrenaline state during class, where she had fought off the repeated attacks of the “psycho-muggers“, she persisted in fighting in her high adrenaline mode on the street despite her injuries. The gang leader most likely had some martial arts training but not in ground combat, so eventually, she was able to knock him unconscious by using her legs against his arms. She was able to stagger to the emergency room on her own. She had minor slashing knife wounds on her legs, and the soles and sides of her shoes were also slashed. She did not remember that her assailant had a knife, but her wounds were evidence that he had been armed. She survived due to her basic self-defense training, courage, and improvisational skills.

The most important lesson is to never give up and to persevere. The second lesson is to make sure your assailant is knocked out before turning to flee. The third lesson, in addition to the Basic course against a Single Unarmed Assailant, is the Model Mugging self-defense Advanced training against Armed Assailants, Multiple Unarmed Assailants, and Multiple Armed Assailants.

Based on our students’ reports, a Model Mugging graduate’s chance of being sexually assaulted is significantly lower than that of women without proper self-defense training. Since the late 1980s, breakaway and copycat organizations have emerged, teaching elements of the revolutionary Model Mugging System. Their statistics are also unknown whether their students have “piggy back” success stories or incidents where students did not stop the assault. Unless students report back to us, we cannot analyze these cases either.

We have had our students successfully defend themselves, and others survive the assault. We emphasize that no one is invincible. However, our greatest success and reward is when Model Mugging graduates use their boundary setting verbal skills to de-escalate violence and find safety. That is a testimonial to the mind-body-spirit training applied in the development and teaching methods of Model Mugging.

In perspective, there are no guarantees in life. However, you can draw your conclusions about our students’ reported effectiveness of our training in real-world danger.

 

If you are a graduate who has applied your skills, please contact us and share your experience

 

Links to other testimonial information:

Four Common Self Defense Testimonials

Personal Testimonials from Self-defense Course Graduates

Self-Defense Success Stories

“Model Mugging Saved My Life!” – Graduate Success Story

Model Mugging Self-Defense Articles

Overcoming Fear- You Can Do It!