We all know that society is less than perfect and that crime could easily touch us all. If you talk to friends and neighbours you will usually find that most of them have either been the victim of crime or know somebody who has. People fear crime, they feel helpless because they think that there is nothing they can do to protect themselves, but that is wrong! There is a lot that the average person can do, to protect themselves, their family and their property. This security handbook will teach you how to perform a security review on various different aspects of your home and property.

Origins of This Book

I first considered writing a security tutorial when I joined friends who were discussing what they would buy if they won millions on the lottery. Most people included the expected fast cars, luxury holidays and big houses, but there was one priority purchase that was common to most of them and which really surprised me. Almost all of them dreamed of using their fortune to buy a ‘secure and safe life style’!

They were ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, people who I thought would have no specific security worries. I investigated further because I wanted to know what additional security they thought they needed. I wanted to know what special threats they thought they faced and how they thought sudden wealth would help them to improve their security. Most of their concerns could be listed under two main classifications:

• A)Aspects of their lifestyle that I thought were already within their control.
• B)Headline-grabbing crimes, which they were very unlikely to encounter.

Basically, people were worrying about nothing, because with the right information and guidance they could make significant improvements to the security of their home and property at minimal cost.

A 2003 survey asked people which were the most significant threats they thought they faced. I selected the following extracts.

What do you worry most about for yourself and your family?

Crime	45%
Health problems	42%
Being unemployed	29%

What have you done in the last 2 years to address these concerns?

Fit smoke alarms	40%
Take more exercise	31%
Fit burglar alarms and locks	27%

That shows me that many people (45%) are worried about crime, but very few people (27%) had taken steps to reduce their exposure to crime! I think that is because they don’t know what they can do. This book will teach you how to look at your house and property, and identify potential vulnerabilities, threats and risks. When you have identified them I will propose simple, affordable and achievable countermeasures that the average person can implement to increase their levels of security.

Lack of understanding and knowledge

Crime statistics can be quite worrying, but they can help us too. For example, look at the facts below.

• A burglary takes place on average every 30 seconds in the UK
• At least 80% of burglars are opportunists, they look for a quick and easy way in and out. Leave the front door open while you ‘nip next door’ and your wallet or handbag might be gone when you get back home
• At least 20% of burglars don’t have to force entry, they just walk in through open doors and windows!
• About 60% of burglars enter the target premises from the rear – where there is less chance of them being spotted and or reported
• More burglaries happen during the day than at night. At night it is quiet and there are more people at home to hear and report strange people, noises, lights or breaking glass where they shouldn’t be. For that reason most burglaries happen during the day.

That might worry you, but I want to train you to view this sort of information differently – as opportunities to address potential vulnerabilities. When looking at the points above, I found that the last three were really helpful, because they help us to concentrate our limited resources where they will do most good. For example:

• We can stop the opportunist criminal by not giving them an opportunity! Always close the windows and lock the door when you go out, don’t leave wallets and hand bags unattended, etc. By realising that opportunist thieves are around us, then taking a second to think about what we could do, we can remove the opportunities for that thief to target us!
• If 60% of burglars enter a building from the back, we should aim to prevent the burglar from getting to the back of our premises. By doing that, 60% of burglars won’t even try to break into your house so we have reduced the chance of your house being burgled by 60%!
• If most burglars break in during the day, by making your house as safe as it can be during the day, you will further reduce the chance that your house will be targeted

That is the end of lesson one! You have achieved something significant already. You and your family are now considerably safer because you have begun to look for lessons to be learned and have taken or will be taking steps to reduce your vulnerability. As you work through this book, you will identify a number of risks, threats and vulnerabilities as well as deciding how you can remove, reduce or avoid them. From the above lessons you may have taken the following steps to reduce your vulnerability to burglars:

• closing doors and not leaving valuables on show
• denying burglars access to the rear of your property
• making sure your house is secure during the day

If you have introduced these countermeasures, you have probably made yourself 70% less likely to become the victim of opportunist theft and domestic burglary and that’s not a bad result considering this is only Chapter 1!

Do you need a high IQ? Do you have to be wealthy? Do you have to be a master carpenter or welder to improve your security? No, best of all, that is as hard as it gets.

Recording Vulnerabilities, Threats and Risks

As you review different aspects of your home and property security, you will need to record any problems you identify. You may develop your own style and method of recording the vulnerabilities, threats and risks; until then you may want to use the ‘form’ below.

I suggest that you use a new form to record each threat, risk or vulnerability that you identify. This will help you to control and manage them as you gradually resolve them, improving your security.

Give the form a title, as in the example above. Write the ‘problem’ in the problem box with any further explanation in the next box, as in the example above. Lastly add any possible countermeasures. You may take them from the examples I list in the book, or you may add countermeasures that are appropriate to you. For example in the problem described above, if you were a bricklayer, you might add a possible countermeasure of removing the hedge and building a brick wall along the boundary!

Recording each problem on a new form allows you to:

• Keep a record of all vulnerabilities, threats and risks identified.
• Gradually review and refine your understanding of the problems as you research them. For example, after looking into the problem you may find that the council has decided to erect a fence along the boundary which resolves your problem at no cost or effort to you!
• As you understand the problems better, you will be able to add to and refine the countermeasures. For example, you may find that you would need planning permission to erect a fence and the council will not grant that permission, so your only option is to plant prickly shrubs to repair and reinforce the existing hedge.
• You will be able to review and sort the forms, which will allow you to place the countermeasures in priority order. For example, you may have identified two potential problems, one is the gaps in the rear hedge, and the other is that the front door cannot be locked. I would suggest that repairing the front door is a priority and that the hedge can wait!
• With additional analysis you can select the countermeasures you wish to implement to resolve any problem. By crossing out the discarded counter-measures you will arrive at a record that shows the problem and the selected countermeasure(s), as shown in this example.

Work through this book, reading each section until you understand the vulnerabilities, threats and risks that you face. When you are sure you fully understand, work through and compile your list of vulnerabilities, threats, risks and countermeasures. Make particularly sure that you note down any additional threats and risks that may be unique and appropriate to your lifestyle. When you identify an additional threat or risk, record it, then use the same common sense process to either avoid it, remove it or reduce the impact to an acceptable level.

Definitions

If we have a common understanding and definition of some basic terms, we will be able to make better progress.

Security

Security is the application of methods and procedures that are used to make our lifestyle secure against any vulnerabilities, threats and risks. By applying security appropriately, we will achieve safety!

Vulnerability

A ‘vulnerability’ is the avenue that a threat uses to reach you and cause you harm. If your front door lock is broken, that is a ‘vulnerability’. If you can’t shut and lock the front door, your house isn’t secure. If you can’t secure the house, the contents and people inside can’t be protected against any external threats. A broken front door would be easy to identify. The vulnerability isn’t always so easy to spot, however. For example, leaving your garden shed door unlocked leaves you vulnerable in several ways.

Threat

A threat is any occurrence that could cause you harm, loss or distress. Threats may be imposed on us by crimes such as theft, robbery, burglary and assault by drunks in the street. Though this book primarily concentrates on threats that could be imposed on us by criminal activity or accident, we will also probably become aware of other threats, such as fire or flood, and we will address them.

Risk

Risk is the extent of our exposure to the threats to which we are vulnerable. Risk can be measured in two ways: either the impact of the threat or the likelihood of falling victim to that threat:

• The impact of a threat is a measure of the damage, injury or loss it could inflict if we fell victim to that threat. For example, the impact of somebody throwing a stone at my car is that I might have to replace a window, or get the paint repaired. However, if I was driving at speed on an unfamiliar road and somebody threw a stone at my car, I could crash, destroying the car and being killed. Thus the risk involved in somebody throwing a stone at my car when it is parked is radically different to the potential risk if they threw that stone at my car when I was driving because the impact is different.
• The likelihood of a threat is a measure of the frequency with which we are exposed to it and may become a victim of it. For example, you would agree that being targeted by an international gang of terrorists, who plan to kidnap somebody and demand ten million pounds as ransom, would be a major threat. However for me, the likelihood of that happening is so low that I won’t be losing any sleep over it. I don’t have ten million pounds and any self-respecting international terrorist would know that. I am of no significance to them and anyway the places I go are not the sort of places they would be frequenting while they looked for a victim! Though kidnapping and murder are decidedly unwelcome, because I am not a senior politician, wealthy celebrity or national leader, I am pretty sure they won’t be looking for me.

Countermeasures

A countermeasure is something that you can do to improve your safety and security. My aim is to teach you how to identify problems, then how to propose appropriate solutions to those problems. To do that I will discuss potential vulnerabilities, threats and risks then suggest a range of appropriate potential countermeasures. None of the lists I produce are exhaustive; they simply illustrate the problems and possible solutions. The lists will be a guide for you when considering your unique circumstances and lifestyle, but you will need to spend some time identifying your vulnerabilities, threats and risks, then finding a countermeasure that is appropriate to your lifestyle and circumstances.

Generally when you identify a threat, there are four things that you can do about that risk:

• Ignore it and hope it goes away
• Take action to reduce the risk
• Take action to avoid the risk
• Take action to remove the threat – without taking new and unnecessary risks

For any given vulnerability, threat and risk some options might not be acceptable because of the intrusive impact they will have on your lifestyle. To illustrate that I will use a simple example. Suppose the threat you have identified is shards of broken glass on the living room couch, using the above strategy there are four options in dealing with it.

• Ignore it– keep using the living room and hope that nobody gets hurt when they sit on the couch and the broken glass
• Reduce the risk– keep using the living room, but put a notice on the door warning people not to use the couch because of the broken glass. Perhaps you could also push the couch into the far corner of the room
• Avoid the risk– never go into the living room again, which will make absolutely sure that nobody ever gets injured by the broken glass on the couch
• Remove the threat– buy and wear gardening gloves and goggles as you carefully pick up the larger pieces of glass. Use a dustpan and brush to sweep up the smaller pieces. Finally rent a powerful industrial vacuum cleaner and use it to ensure that all traces of the broken glass are removed before anyone uses the living room again

Though all of the options would work, it is clear that some options are more acceptable and sensible. Some options are unrealistic or foolhardy and the last option is the most difficult to implement; it actually involves some effort and expenditure on your part. As with this example, for every threat and risk, only you know your circumstances sufficiently well to decide what course of action is best for you, or how you can adapt an approach to suit your circumstances. Maybe you live in a mansion with over two hundred rooms, which means that you can realistically afford to adopt option three and avoid it by never going into that room again!

In this example, for most people we can see that the last option ‘removing the risk’ is the most effective long-term solution, but it asks you to spend some money to achieve it. Knowing your lifestyle and circumstances you are free to adapt the approach to suit your circumstances. Perhaps you can borrow a vacuum cleaner from your neighbour and you can wear your motorcycling gloves to pick up the glass. You already have a dustpan and brush, so all you have to do is to buy some goggles, which will come in handy for other jobs anyway. By understanding the threat, recognising the options and making use of your own skill, experience and knowledge, you can amend a proposed countermeasure to suit your circumstances. Throughout this book, that will be your primary objective.

• To recognise the sort of threats that are out there and how they can affect you and your lifestyle
• To look beyond the examples listed, to recognise additional or modified threats to which you are vulnerable due to your unusual or unique circumstances
• To study those threats and to identify how you can remove or reduce the risks
• To compile an action plan that sets out the actions you have to take in your lifestyle to reduce or remove the risks identified.
• To continually monitor your life, so that you can recognise change which will be a trigger to performing another personal security review, to ensure that your lifestyle remains as safe and secure as possible.

Though this security handbook necessarily compartmentalises your life, in reality various segments of your life will almost certainly overlap. That doesn’t pose any real problems for you, because when performing a security review you have an intimate understanding of all aspects of your life.

When you have reviewed your security, you may want to use your new skill and experience to review security for an elderly relative. If you are attempting to perform a review for somebody else, it should be clear that you will need constant access to and a close and detailed understanding of the person and lifestyle of the subject of the review. Without a fairly intimate knowledge of the lifestyle of the subject of a security review, you cannot hope to understand the impact of potential risks and countermeasures or how relevant they may be.

Safety

Safety is the status we all want to achieve. Safety can be defined as a circumstance in which vulnerabilities have been removed or reduced to insignificant levels, and threats and risks have been removed by the application of sensible and affordable countermeasures.

Non-security problems

While performing a security review people often identify ‘problems’ that are not security related. For example, while checking the garden, we might smell gas behind the garage, so there could be a gas leak there. When checking the greenhouse, we might discover that there are bare electrical wires visible at the back of the greenhouse heater.

Obviously we should not ignore these problems. They are not security related, but they are a potential threat to us so we have to take action. Call the gas company to investigate the potential gas leak and call an electrician to repair the greenhouse heater. Don’t lose track of any of these problems; record them with the suggested form or one of your own design.

Review Method

The method I propose is easy to follow. The book is broken down into chapters and sections, where each one concentrates on a different aspect of your lifestyle security.

Stages

A security review is completed in simple stages. This book will teach you how to perform each of these stages.

Stage 1: Review security

You will review an aspect of your security during which you will identify and record any vulnerabilities, threats and risks that you find.

Stage 2: Prioritise problems

When you have finished the review, you will need to prioritise the vulnerabilities, threats and risks that you have identified and recorded. When this is completed, you will have listed them in order of severity, putting those that present the greatest threat to you and your lifestyle at the top of the list, and those that present the least threat at the bottom of the list. This prioritisation process allows you to concentrate on resolving the priority problems, those that will give you the greatest possible reward for your efforts, making best use of your limited resources.

Remember, addressing the highest priority problems as soon as possible will allow you to make the greatest improvements to your personal safety and security.

Stage 3: Define countermeasures

In stage 2 you prioritised the problems to allow you to concentrate on those that offer the greatest threat to your security. In this stage, you take each problem and attempt to identify and define sensible, achievable and affordable countermeasures that will resolve the problem to your satisfaction. You may come up with only one possible countermeasure, or a list of three alternate countermeasures. When you have identified them, record them.

Stage 4: Adopt and prioritise countermeasures

For each ‘problem’ you should now consider the possible countermeasures that you identified and recorded. That is, look at the options and based on a range of considerations decide which countermeasure(s) you want to introduce. The decision will be based on a range of issues including:

• Benefit– try to decide by how much any proposed countermeasure will improve your security. A countermeasure that delivers marginal benefits should possibly be shelved while you concentrate on a countermeasure that will deliver greater benefits
• Cost– try to identify the financial cost of introducing each countermeasure. The cost may be easy to identify. For example ‘buy a new padlock for the garage door’ will cost £15, plus £5 for extra keys to be cut. Sometimes there are hidden costs, which have to be identified and included. For example, suppose you had identified the countermeasure of ‘replace the front door’ to improve your security. The cost of the door is £325, but that is not the total cost. Fitting the door will cost an extra £125; new lock, letterbox, handles and house numbers will cost £75. The price of the door and fitting includes a new doorframe, which means the wall around the door will have to be plastered and painted at a cost of £55. So there is a hidden cost of an extra £255 to replace the front door!
• Resources– if you are paying somebody to introduce the countermeasure you will just ask for three independent quotes, and pick the quote that offers best value, which may not be the cheapest! As with any purchase, you should also consider reputation and recommendation, quality, availability and your feelings. When dealing with tradesmen and craftsmen, I always consider my ‘gut feelings’ about them. No matter how well they may be recommended, no matter how low they may bid, if I just don’t trust them or 1 feel there is something not quite right, I won’t use them
• Degree of risk– you should also consider the level of risk you will be taking by not introducing a countermeasure. For example, if you don’t fix the lock on the front door, you may as well leave the front door open because the lock is useless. That would be a critical factor to be considered when prioritising your countermeasures

Stage 5: Implement

When all of the decisions have been made, you need to implement the selected countermeasures in the order you decided upon. The countermeasures may be simple, such as shutting the kitchen window instead of leaving it open for the cat to come in when it is cold or wet. It may be more involved, such as cutting back all of the hedges and shrubs around the back of the house then planting prickly bushes to stop burglars hiding there. It could even be life changing, such as changing your job and moving to live in a safer area, while making the children change schools.

This is the most vital stage of the process, the time when you act to protect yourself against the vulnerabilities, threats and risks that you have identified during the lifestyle security review process.

Review Pace

The sooner you review your security and implement countermeasures, the safer you will be, but don’t rush the process. Take your time to read each section of this book carefully. Think about each problem that is discussed and consider how that problem or others like it could affect you. When you fully understand them, you will have a valuable insight into the way apparently inconsequential, innocent acts, omissions and decisions could put your security at risk.

When you have finished reading this book, using the examples and descriptions given and your intimate knowledge of your unique lifestyle, you will be able to identify and prioritise the specific problems that could turn you into a victim. More importantly, you will have learned to look at everyday situations and be able to identify where new risks and threats lie, which will allow you to take steps to avoid them. Knowing that not only allows you to make changes to reduce or remove your exposure, it also allows you to continually review your life, identifying and avoiding new threats as they occur.

What You Will Need

To understand and be able to perform an effective security review, you need:

• This security handbook and the methods and explanations contained within it
• Constant access to and a close and detailed understanding of the person and lifestyle of the subject of the review. Which means you can easily review your own lifestyle, you could review a close family member but almost certainly couldn’t effectively review the lifestyle of a total stranger
• Time to read the book, to consider the range and type of threats discussed and to take more time to think through and identify how any of the issues raised could affect your particular lifestyle.
• The ability to decide on the relevance and threat level to your lifestyle of the risks discussed, while taking a broader view to decide if you are subject to other more specific and unique threats and risks
• A notepad and pencil or other means of recording vulnerabilities, threats and risks as you discover them, as well as assigning appropriate and possible countermeasures. The skill, finances and resources to implement any counter-measure that you select

Other than that there are no specialist skills of knowledge required to be able to perform a security review! You must:

• Recognise and understand that there are threats and risks all around us
• Accept that some of your activities will make you more vulnerable and hence at a greater risk of becoming a victim
• Learn how to identify potential threats and risks in ‘your world’
• Learn how to identify acceptable and possible countermeasures that you can use to reduce or remove your exposure to those threats and risks
• Remain alert to your surroundings, particularly in relation to some of your activities and actions
• Become equally aware of the activities and behaviour of the people around you, and be prepared to take action to avoid developing or potential risks

When To Do It

If you have never reviewed your home security, review it as soon as you can. After that, you should perform a formal lifestyle security review every 12 months.

However, during the year you should remember to maintain an awareness of your world and continually monitor your lifestyle, because a change in circumstances could invalidate previous reviews and countermeasures.

If you identify a significant change in your life, you should at least undertake a partial security review, but the more significant the change, the more reason there is to perform a new and complete security review! When you have a potentially life-changing experience, you should perform a new lifestyle security review! For example, if you:

• move house
• start a new job
• take a different mode of transport to work
• have a child
• come into some money

It’s Your Decision!

Remember that this is general advice. Laws change, and people differ. You may have a totally different lifestyle to everyone else in the country. You may have strange allergies, a love for dangerous sports and a pet tiger! Because there is only one you, this has to be just advice and you must treat it as such. You must decide if you want to act on any of this advice. You must select actions that are appropriate to you. You must check with relevant experts to make sure that you do the right thing for you.