You are extremely unlikely to be involved in headline grabbing and exotic crimes. Though some crime is increasing, you can avoid it by being sensible, maintaining awareness of your security and surroundings and taking simple steps to protect yourself.

Common Sense

A good level of security is quite easy to achieve when you know how. Good security is based on:

• You remaining aware of your surroundings.
• Recognising everything that is happening around you, particularly anything that could develop in a way that could affect you, your property or your loved ones.
• Recognising vulnerabilities that could leave you open to threats and risks.
• Proactively addressing vulnerabilities to remove them or reduce them to an acceptable level.
• Identifying and assessing the threat posed by potential risks as they develop and taking steps to avoid those risks or taking steps to reduce their impact to acceptable levels.
• Taking common sense steps to protect yourself and your property, such as:
  • Don’t go out and get drunk, drunks are far more likely to become the victim of theft, robbery, assault and other crimes and to commit crimes such as theft, criminal damage and assaults.
  • Don’t leave valuables visible in an unattended car.
  • Never leave your keys in your car.
  • Don’t be careless, keep your handbag, purse, wallet and other portable valuables with you or locked securely away.
  • Make sure that your house is as secure as you can make it.
  • Be cautious with visitors who want to come into the house.
  • Be cautious when disclosing personal information, in forms, on the Internet, when ordering and when using your credit cards.
  • Shred personal documents, don’t let the criminals steal your identity.

Don’t Worry Too Much

Don’t ruin your life by devoting your whole existence to ‘staying safe’. Don’t believe the scare stories you see on the television and the front pages of the newspapers, just learn the lessons that apply to you and your life.

Don’t allow yourself to become preoccupied with types and levels of crime, that do not concern you and will never affect you.

Security awareness should be a natural and automatic part of your lifestyle just as much as safely crossing the road. You have trained yourself not to cross a road without looking, and that has become an automatic part of your life.

You don’t constantly worry about roads and traffic. You don’t walk around in fear of cars, or of becoming the victim of a traffic accident. You have learned and developed the skill of crossing a road safely when you need to. That has become embedded in your lifestyle, you automatically identify a road, then automatically call up and use the safe road crossing method you have learned.

I suggest that security can be a similar ‘automatic’ skill, given guidance and practice.

Remember that just by considering your security and taking the simplest measures you are far less likely to become a victim of crime. Don’t be gullible stay alert, review your security when you need to, take appropriate countermeasures where you can and you will have a safe, secure and happy life.