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Tip of the Month
August 2010
Preventing Crime
Here are some of the easiest ways to prevent crime from happening to you or to significantly reduce your chances of being a victim.
1. Be aware of what is happening in your neighborhood. Get to know your neighbors, exchange numbers, including emergency ones. This way, if anything ever happens in your home or on your property or to you, neighbors will know whom to contact in the event of an emergency.
2. Take simple and necessary precautions. There are many clever and inexpensive ways to take precautions that you can implement around your home. Such things like alarm system warning decals, appearances of a dog on the premises, extra window and door locks and lighting can go a long way in deterring crime.
3. Don’t make yourself an easy target. It’s hard to resist when opportunity comes knocking for a criminal. Remember a criminal is an opportunist. He is looking for an easy score. If a burglar is walking down your street at night and your house is very well lit, and your neighbors house is not, it makes it easier for the criminal to conceal himself and subsequently easier for him to break in.
What are some factors that lead a burglar to avoid your house and go to the next?
The suspects believe you’re coming home soon.
Make it more difficult for them to take advantage of you.
The suspect can be easily seen or watched.
There used to be a time when you could even leave a note on the door and a key under the mat. However, those days are unfortunately gone forever.
Today that same note would read more like this to the criminal:
Dear Mr. Bad Guy,
I’m not home now. Please let yourself in, there are leftovers in the fridge. Oh, and my jewelry box is in my dresser drawer, second down on the right under my bikinis.
Actually, believe it or not, the note is still a good idea, if properly formatted. For example:
Hello Tom and Jack,
We had to run to the store – sorry we could not be here when you arrived. You have a key so please let yourself in. By the way will you please feed Jaws for me?
Now here comes the bad guy. What do you think he will be thinking as he reads this note?
He thinks two men are coming over. It sounds like you will be home any time. There’s something in the house called Jaws.
Whenever you leave your home – even for a short period of time, lock your doors. It does not matter if you’re just going to the store, which is three minutes away or picking up your kids from school. No matter what you do or where you go lock your doors and windows.
The average time a burglar is in your home is three to eight minutes. And in that very short time, they can have most of your worldly possessions. How is this possible? Simple, they know where to look.
Some of the simplest and easiest ways to secure your home may be a select combination of the following:
Leave the radio or TV on, perhaps a talk channel.
A home alarm system.
Use secondary window locks.
Use double-keyed deadbolts locks. This is a deadbolt lock that keys from the inside and the outside. There are a couple of benefits to this double-keyed lock. First, if a burglar breaks into your home through a window, and he goes to exit the house through a door – he will not be able to leave because the deadbolt will be locked, he will not be able to unlock it. Second, if there is glass in your door, and he breaks the glass he will not be able to unlock the door.
What’s important are the little details that would have him looking someplace else or moving on.
Irene T. Rose
Crime Prevention Officer
831-6581
August 2010
Preventing Crime
Here are some of the easiest ways to prevent crime from happening to you or to significantly reduce your chances of being a victim.
1. Be aware of what is happening in your neighborhood. Get to know your neighbors, exchange numbers, including emergency ones. This way, if anything ever happens in your home or on your property or to you, neighbors will know whom to contact in the event of an emergency.
2. Take simple and necessary precautions. There are many clever and inexpensive ways to take precautions that you can implement around your home. Such things like alarm system warning decals, appearances of a dog on the premises, extra window and door locks and lighting can go a long way in deterring crime.
3. Don’t make yourself an easy target. It’s hard to resist when opportunity comes knocking for a criminal. Remember a criminal is an opportunist. He is looking for an easy score. If a burglar is walking down your street at night and your house is very well lit, and your neighbors house is not, it makes it easier for the criminal to conceal himself and subsequently easier for him to break in.
What are some factors that lead a burglar to avoid your house and go to the next?
The suspects believe you’re coming home soon.
Make it more difficult for them to take advantage of you.
The suspect can be easily seen or watched.
There used to be a time when you could even leave a note on the door and a key under the mat. However, those days are unfortunately gone forever.
Today that same note would read more like this to the criminal:
Dear Mr. Bad Guy,
I’m not home now. Please let yourself in, there are leftovers in the fridge. Oh, and my jewelry box is in my dresser drawer, second down on the right under my bikinis.
Actually, believe it or not, the note is still a good idea, if properly formatted. For example:
Hello Tom and Jack,
We had to run to the store – sorry we could not be here when you arrived. You have a key so please let yourself in. By the way will you please feed Jaws for me?
Now here comes the bad guy. What do you think he will be thinking as he reads this note?
He thinks two men are coming over. It sounds like you will be home any time. There’s something in the house called Jaws.
Whenever you leave your home – even for a short period of time, lock your doors. It does not matter if you’re just going to the store, which is three minutes away or picking up your kids from school. No matter what you do or where you go lock your doors and windows.
The average time a burglar is in your home is three to eight minutes. And in that very short time, they can have most of your worldly possessions. How is this possible? Simple, they know where to look.
Some of the simplest and easiest ways to secure your home may be a select combination of the following:
Leave the radio or TV on, perhaps a talk channel.
A home alarm system.
Use secondary window locks.
Use double-keyed deadbolts locks. This is a deadbolt lock that keys from the inside and the outside. There are a couple of benefits to this double-keyed lock. First, if a burglar breaks into your home through a window, and he goes to exit the house through a door – he will not be able to leave because the deadbolt will be locked, he will not be able to unlock it. Second, if there is glass in your door, and he breaks the glass he will not be able to unlock the door.
What’s important are the little details that would have him looking someplace else or moving on.
Irene T. Rose
Crime Prevention Officer
831-6581