Every few days, it seems as if students receive yet another e-mail with the all too familiar subject heading: CRIME ALERT. These e-mails have recently contained increasing reports of aggravated batteries and sexual assaults occurring closer to the center of campus. With these alarming events taking place, students who want to better prepare themselves for a dangerous encounter can find several self-defense options in the Champaign-Urbana area.

The University Police Department offers a program for women called the Rape Aggression Defense System, or RAD. This comprehensive program began in Virginia but was established on the UI campus in 1996 as a way to help women learn ways to defend against sexual assault.

Sergeant Joan Fiesta, a certified RAD instructor, said that the classes cover a wide range of issues that play a role in crimes against women.

“We enhance a woman’s natural instinct to resist and develop techniques that would be easiest to use in case of an attempted abduction or sexual assault,” Fiesta said. “We do work on strikes with the hands, elbows and knees. We also touch on a lot of hard issues, but the end result is to empower women to make positive choices.”

The class consists of four three-hour sessions that involve lectures, physical drills that attempt to imitate real-life attacks and discussions meant to help participants understand the value in their safety.

“I open the class with some points from the radKIDS Personal Empowerment Safety Education class,” Fiesta said. “The first [point] being: ‘Nobody has the right to hurt me because I’m special.’ Out of modesty, we don’t go around telling people, ‘I’m special.’ However, self-value, self-worth is extremely important to a person who wants to survive.”

Steve Lavigne, owner and chief instructor at the Hwa Rang Do Martial Arts Academy in Urbana, also urges potential victims to assert their power.

“[Students] can’t be afraid to make a scene and use their voice,” Lavigne said. “You have to let the person know to stop. They have to be deadly serious.”

The Hwa Rang Do Academy opened in 2006 and offers free self-defense classes for all age groups every month. Lavigne’s classes teach proper stance and practical moves that can be applied to a dangerous situation. Though classes are offered once per month, Lavigne encourages students to come multiple times in order to effectively develop skills well enough to use them instinctively.

One of the first lessons Lavigne teaches during his sessions is how to hit an attacker. He says trying to outright punch someone is an easy way to injure the hand and lower chances of escape. Instead Lavigne recommends using the palm of the hand and aiming for a vulnerable area like the nose.

“If people get hit in the nose, it bleeds, and then they can’t see because their eyes start watering, which allows you to more easily get away,” Lavigne said.

When a weapon is involved it gets trickier. According to Lavigne the use of a weapon will many times result in some sort of injury for a victim. The most important thing to do is to never let the weapon out of sight. This may even involve grabbing an attacker’s threatening arm and trying to keep the weapon away.

“You can’t be afraid to hurt someone,” Lavigne said. “No one has the right to put their hands on you without your consent…if they do, then force must be used to prevent it.”

Whether students choose to take self-defense classes or not, trying to avoid these dangerous situations altogether is the best option. University Police Lieutenant Skip Frost encourages students to be aware of their surroundings by taking off music headphones and resisting the urge to talk or text on the phone while walking at night. Frost also urges students to walk in groups if possible and to report any suspicious or harmful activity as soon as it occurs.

“It is such an urban myth that the police will come in, take a crime report and then arrest you if you’ve been drinking while underage,” Frost said. “If you just got your lip split by four guys, we’re not going to give you a drinking citation. Witnesses and victims will sometimes wait an hour or even a day to report a crime. The chances of us solving that problem go up exponentially the sooner we are notified.”