Erin Gibbs Van Brunschot is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean of Social Sciences at the University of Calgary, Canada. She received her BA and MA in Sociology from the University of Calgary, and her PhD from the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on the concept of risk as it primarily applies to criminal offending and victimization. Her current research projects include an examination of how past experiences with various types of hazards influence self-protective behavior and expectations for the future, and the means by which individual and institutional efforts to enhance security work together and/or at cross-purposes. She has published articles in such journals as the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, Alberta Journal of Educational Research, Women and Criminal Justice, British Journal of Criminology and has made major contributions in books such as Juvenile Delinquency by Creechan and Silverman; Crime in Canadian Society 6th edition by Silverman, Teevan, and Sacco; The Process and Structure of Crime by Meier, Kennedy, and Sacco; and the Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment by Levinson.