NCJ Number
78437
Date Published
1981
Length
133 pages
Annotation
Detailed guidelines are provided to enable citizens to protect themselves against both property crimes and crimes against the person by reducing the opportunities for crimes to occur.
Abstract
The manual is intended to encourage citizens to break habits which have allowed crime to flourish and to provide a checklist of specific precautionary information. A section on personal protection provides guidelines for hiring or being a babysitter, being followed in a car or on foot, protecting children at home and away from home, and dealing with delivery or repair persons. Instructions are also given for elderly persons' self-protection, gun ownership, and hitchhiking. Additional guidelines cover obscene or threatening phone calls, preventing and defending against sexual assault, dealing with solicitors, and handling telephone directory and building roster listings. The section on protecting money discusses pickpockets, the protection of purses and handbags, and 17 types of confidence games, including the lost wallet con, mail order scams, and teenage cons. Information for residents of both apartments and houses discusses burglar alarms, fences, lights and timers, mailing of valuables, neighborhood watch programs, shrubbery, vacations, and windows and doors. An additional section details how to prevent automobile and bicycle thefts and thefts of automobile parts. A list of miscellaneous suggestions for preventing crime is also supplied. The final section, focusing on first aid and personal safety, describes 34 situations which could involve an injury and directs the reader to research and determine the means of dealing with each situation. Diagrams are included.