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After studying 10,000 property crimes and talking to hundreds of victims we learned that what most people think is good security is usually just random chance.
Leaving the property security as is because there haven't been any problems lately seems to make sense.
It isn’t just with property crimes, where it is hard to see the real risk exposure. There are banks, CEO’s and billionaires that make money every day for years, and then one day find they are wiped out.
Read More....
This is probably the most damaging and costly misconception about home safety that exists today.
Fewer businesses stick with this philosophy as they are targeted more often and learn they can't afford to rely on this kind of fake solution.
Maybe years ago, before $5 synthetic crystal meth was the most common street drug, and cordless grinders existed, these ideas might have worked better.
Today, the data shows the opposite is more true. Read More....
#4 We use a Facebook group or a chat group to watch out for one another in our community.
Social media or chat groups work as much as 40% of the time. 25% success or lower is more common.
Letting criminals win 60-75% of the time isn't necessary anymore. These systems are too isolated and information flows too poorly across them.
#5 I have dogs or guns, I'm good.
People who have lived with two crimes in the last five years are the least likely to trust this solution.
From experience they found both dogs or guns have critical gaps that leave their loved ones vulnerable.Read More....
#6 Our court system and laws are too broken to stop crime.
The court system and laws aren’t perfect but we've seen firsthand that they do work.
They work very effectively when you know what levers to pull. The problem most people have is they try to pull levers after the crime. At that point it is too late.
#7 The police are not very good at responding - 'I'm too far away'
The solutions to solve this are very simple and effective.
#1 - I haven't had any problems lately.
Leaving the property security as is because there haven't been any problems lately seems to make sense. It is so easy to do, and it is easy to believe the current security must be working.
Yet, waiting for a crime to happen and then improving the property security is like waiting for a crisis to come and go, and then afterwards preparing to stop the next one. It sounds fine at the time, but it doesn't really work. There is no gentle warning from thieves telling us now is the time to get ready.
The cost of prevention is often lower than the typical loss and the cost of prevention can be dramatically lower than a large loss.
It isn’t just with property crimes, where it is hard to see the real risk exposure.
There are banks, CEO’s and billionaires that make money every day for years, and then one day find they are wiped out.
Here is a graphic showing the 511 US bank failures since 2009. The biggest failures came from not preparing for extreme risks.
In hindsight, most of the failures were preventable, but it required preparing for bad times as well as good times.
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For a home owner - What being fully prepared will prevent are the severe and irreversible costs, crime can have on people and property.
After speaking with dozens of people that lost big from a single crime, we heard over and over how the few dollars saved, by ignoring the risk until after something really bad happened, just wasn’t worth it.
For a business – What being fully prepared will do is save the four areas where a property crime will affect the business.
Most property crimes aren’t that expensive for a business, relatively speaking. It’s easy to think the small costs experienced make spending any further time, money and attention on the matter not worth it. Here are the risk costs that should be considered.
#2 - Low cost, highly rated cameras are all you need
This is probably the most damaging and costly misconception about home safety that exists today.
The low cost camera manufacturers have made billions convincing people this is all a homeowner needs.
There is a LOT of data in the Security Camera Guide that shows cameras as a stand alone solution, have been a miserable failure.
In summary, alerts to mobile phones were not common in 2012. Then an explosion in doorbell and cheap 'highly rated' cameras began to be sold starting in 2014.
If this solution was truly great, the crime rates should have plummeted and everyone should feel way more safe.
Official crime rates in the US and Canada did indeed decrease. However, independent studies all report that the real crime rates are far beyond what the official numbers report. In many cases, large capable organizations like the NY TImes, have shown the real crime rate is 10 to 20 times higher than what is being reported.
It looks more likely that all cheap cameras may have really accomplished over the last 10 years is to get so many people frustrated with the way the police handled their property crime case, that people then stopped reporting future crimes.
In fact, it looks like under reporting grew even faster than the people buying these cameras. See the Security Camera Guide for proof that crime isn't lower, it is under reporting to the police that is lower.
Our hunches about these problems started to show up in these blog posts.
WARNING: Hidden Crime Data Points To Safety Risk Ten Times Worse Than Expected
Lessons from 145 robberies
Monthly Comparison Data of Crime Between Regions Like This: The Most Dangerous Places in Alberta October 2022
#3 - Lights, locks and fencing are an effective deterrent
Maybe 20 or 30 years ago this was true. That was before $5 synthetic crystal meth was the most common street drug and cordless grinders existed. Today, the data shows the opposite is more true.
Hotels, retail store parking lots, apartments, multiunit condo’s, energy services yards, energy lease sites, and automotive repair businesses are almost always well lit. Many of these properties are also fenced.
Yet these locations crime rates as a percentage of the property crime rate is normally higher than other locations.
If lights and locks and fencing worked so well, these locations should have the lowest crime rates, and residential properties with no fencing or lighting should have the highest crime rate. Yet, the opposite is clearly true when examining and compiling the sources where crime takes place.
Most of these recommendations to have good lighting and fencing originate from police led programs where a property is reviewed and a report is provided about how to prevent crime at that location.
Those studies almost always involve CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) which is not a police led program. CPTED is a program sold to police services to help in the area of crime prevention. Some University Criminologist Professors appear to have big financial benefits from the sale and marketing of these programs.
The main concepts of CPTED focuses around creating clear open spaces that are well lit and then using locks and fencing.
Far more effective solutions exist, but leveraging technology or the community are not part of the 'CPTED' recommendations.
One aspect of environmental design that does work well is to remove items attractive to thieves from being visible at night and to store them inside a building after hours. Several business owners have told us that when they started putting things like trailers, vehicles, copper, and more inside their buildings at night crime on their property notably decreased.
#4 - We use a Facebook or a chat group to keep our property safe.
Social media or chat groups work as much as 40%* of the time. 25%* or lower is normal for most groups.
We don't believe letting criminals win the other 60-75% of the time is necessary or healthy. Having the criminals win more than the victims is a bad outcome for those that pay taxes.
These systems are too isolated and information flows too poorly across them.
Criminals can lose 85% or more of the time when a matrix is built in a community.
I still Administer an 11,000 member group. By far the busiest times in that group are Saturday and Sunday mornings, not when crime posts take place. People scroll through their feeds and alerts when it is convenient, like when they are off work on the weekend.
Trusting people who wait until the weekend to catch up on things allows the criminals to move faster than the property owners and the cycle to continue.
*These numbers have been our general, rule of thumb, experience. We've tried measuring a few groups but when some posts become deleted and others don't communicate the status of what happened, gathering precise data is too expensive to be worthwhile.
#5 - I have dogs or guns, I'm good.
People who have lived with two crimes in the last five years are the least likely to trust this solution. These 'double victims' found out the hard way that both guns and dogs can leave critical gaps that left their loved ones vulnerable.
See Lessons from 145 robberies where we breakdown how these 'double victims' now trusted dogs or guns far less than people who had never experienced a crime.
I like guns. I like dogs too. At one point it seemed since so many rural people trust in them, this is a pretty solid solution.
The biggest problem with both these approaches, is that most crimes take less than 10 minutes and property owners and dogs simply can't respond fast enough, consistently enough.
The other part that is harder to talk about is how much a trust in guns or dogs can leave a spouse worried when they are left alone on the property.
A spouse left alone on a rural property is by far the most passionate and worried person there is about the risk of rural crime.
Ignore that reality if you like, but you can't say you were never warned. I've talked to too many people who have been scarred for years because these solutions were supposed to be their home security plan.
#6 - Our court system and laws are too broken to stop crime.
The court system and laws aren’t perfect but they do work. They can even work effectively when you know what levers to pull.
The problem most people have is they try to pull levers after the crime. At that point it is too late.
The solution to stop the enormous costs to society from repeat offenders, addicts, organized crime, and homeless camps is simple and affordable.
Most people haven’t seen how to make the burden of proof so overwhelming that no defense lawyer can find enough loopholes to get their client off, but this is certainly possible. It's even possible to use Ethical Ways To Make A Judge Squirm in their seat.
Speed is the most important factor to prevent this kind of crime and to stop crimes in progress.
We can show how to use speed in ways a Chief of Police suggested to other Police Chiefs "It's like watching Amazon being built when I'm used to using the Sears & Roebuck catalog.
The bottom line with the court system is to leverage the perverse financial incentives that exist within the system.
As a home owner you are likely the only one who will ever lose money if crime happens to you or in the community. Every other party will get paid and promoted whether they are good at making a difference or not. See Follow The Money for a complete breakdown of who wins and loses when you are a frustrated crime victim.
Knowing these perverse financial incentives exist, you can use them to your advantage. By making a crime so public, and so well documented, those risk adverse players in the justice system will not want to risk their position or status.
#7 - The police are not very good at responding - 'I'm too far away'
The solutions to solve this are very simple and effective.
Often, these very conditions are the foundation for a strong advantage in home safety.
Make a crime clearly visible to the public and law enforcement while it is unfolding, or even better, before it happens and it’s amazing how those concerns are no longer a barrier.
Crime Blocker shows a formula that turns this problem on its head and turns it into an advantage. Once in place, most home owners and property owners will see a 10X increase in their safety level.
See these posts for some background information.
How To Get Police Response in Under 8 Minutes
Two More Near Death Experiences
Small City Spooks Thieves
If you are skeptical about these seven common mistakes being accurate that's totally understandable. It took me years to see this clearly.
Here are ways you can learn more.
Security Camera Guide
If reading the Seven Common Security Mistakes was helpful, you may also benefit from the
Best Home Security Camera Guide
Built from the lessons and insights after examining over 10,000 property crimes.
Crime Blocker
If the thought of reading a Security Camera Guide is not exciting I understand!
After sharing and talking to hundreds of people about the information in the Security Camera Guide I realized we needed to come up with an 'Easy Button' type service that does everything for someone.
If you want to prevent the next crime on your property, I can guarantee it can be done using Crime Blocker. It makes every piece of property security work better than it did before.
The better the home security system you have now, the lower the cost to add Crime Blocker.