Having heard many stories of how crimes are perpetrated, people need to understand what the different components are to securing themselves and what they are capable of and what they aren't. So I have come up with the BEAR principal, Barrier, Early warning, Action, Reaction.

Barrier

First and foremost to securing your property is to have physical barriers to prevent entry to your property. It is very important to understand the function of physical barriers. They will not stop a determined intruder. However, given the choice between a picket fence and double rolls of razor wire with electric fence in between, most intruders would opt to tackle the picket fence. So even though criminals may gain entry through a palisade fence by using a car jack, it still takes them time to do that, time in which they could be spotted or apprehended or spooked. Most physical barriers can be overcome in some way, but having walls, palisade fencing, electric fencing and electric gates provides discouragement to the opportunist criminals, and delays the more determined criminals.

Early Warning

If they make it through your physical barriers, you need to know about it as soon as possible. Early Warning is the next step. Having beams around your yard, outdoor detectors or outdoor cameras with motion detection or even dogs will let you know as soon as someone enters your property. You now have regained a little advantage, in that you now can hit your panic button, call the CIC, switch on outside lights, let your dogs out, get your gun, etc before you are confronted in your home. If you are not at home, reliable outdoor detectors can be linked to you alarm, giving you and your armed response extra precious minutes before the criminals even try to gain access to your home. And if your Early Warning system sends you an SMS, you will also know if someone might be waiting for you to get home, so you can be aware or ask your armed response company to accompany you home.

Action

Criminals are always becoming smarter, so they know to be quicker about getting in and out to rob your home. If your home is breached, you need to take some kind of Action to protect yourself and your belongings. If you are home, a panic plan of action would be necessary. Obviously you should hit your panic button, call the CIC and move to a secured area of the house or even a panic room. If you are not home, and we always hope this is the case, modern alarm panels which can be operated remotely can be linked to pepper gas or foggers so that intruders are unable to continue their quest either because they can't see anything or because they have been incapacitated by pepper gas.

Reaction

The last part of securing your home is also part of securing your community, Reaction. This would be the part of your security system that would help apprehend the criminals, thereby preventing them (hopefully) from committing crime again. CCTV cameras which record visuals of the criminals have proven to be very effective in reducing crime due to the fact that criminals know they are more likely to be apprehended if there is clear evidence of what they look like. Other things that can be used are tracking devices which can be hidden in valuables, so they can be traced, the criminals apprehended and the stolen property returned.

The point of this column is so that people can clearly understand the different functions that each part of the security system provides. Tracking devices will not help protect you if someone is in your house, but they are invaluable aids to apprehension. And Early Warning systems are only as good as the response team. So please make sure you implement each section of the BEAR principle, because if entire communities are fully protected, criminals will be forced to ply their trade elsewhere.

If you need any more information on any of the products or theories mentioned here, please contact us

Regards,
Matthew Kent