Simple & Effective Crime Prevention Strategies

by Sergeant Matt Jarvis

It takes a criminal about 11 seconds to get into your house.  All you have to do is make your house secure enough that the criminal will think entry will take longer than 11 seconds.  Sounds simple because it really is. Crime prevention strategies around the house.

  1.    Neighborhood Watch.  I know for a fact, and I have stories to back me up on this, Neighborhood Watch works!  As a patrol officer I love to get radio calls from people who see something suspicious and call us to check it out.  As a cruiser officer, I’m driving down your street and I don’t know who belongs in your neighborhood.  Activity that seems normal to me could really be a serious problem in our area.  If citizens get involved in their neighborhoods and watch for activity that is out-of-the-ordinary we can work as a team to fight it.  My sons were baseball players in high school and a basic fundamental was playing “small ball.”  In other words they paid attention to the little details and this prevented larger problems or made the larger problems easy to solve if they popped up.  Let’s all play small ball against the criminals.  Call if you see anything suspicious.

 2.      Get house numbers installed.  Good, large numbers that can be seen from your street at night with little or no artificial lighting.  Here’s the basic pattern that police use to look for a house number.  As we get closer to your house we look over the garage, then over the door then either side of the door.  These are good places for numbers.  Make ‘em big though.

 3.      The 3 and 6 rule.  All shrubs are trimmed so they are no higher than 3 foot off the ground and trees are all trimmed so branches are no lower than 6 foot.  This gives casual observers a chance to see if anyone is lurking around your house.  Keep shrubs and trees 3 feet from the sidewalk and house too.  This will help prevent someone from standing in the bushes and looking in a window using the brush as cover.  Look around and you’ll see many houses with Evergreen trees having lower branches laying on the ground.  A great place for hide and go seek for criminals.

 4.      180 degree eye viewer in the door.  And use it!  If someone is at your door and refuses to step up to be seen then don’t open the door and call us immediately.  If you have any glass around your door handle consider somehow replacing or reinforcing it so it can’t be broken to allow someone o reach through and unlock the door.  Also make sure your porch light is working.  At night turn it on if someone is knocking at the door so you can clearly see who it is and if they are bringing any trouble with them.

 5.      Proper dead bolt installed in entry door.  This means that the door is adjusted so the deadbolt fits at least one-inch into the door jam.  Much has been debated about whether you should use a single or double cylinder dead bolt lock.  Basically, a single cylinder lock uses a knob on the inside to open while the double cylinder uses a key on the inside.  The double cylinder is definitely more safe but my personal recommendation is to use a single cylinder.  In an emergency it would be difficult to get the key into the lock and, let’s face it, after searching for the key several times you will leave it in the lock anyway.  Again, using the single cylinder is my personal opinion and not that of the management.

6.  Here’s a very big problem though.  Most burglars don’t break glass or kick doors in.  That makes noise, causes injuries or attracts unwanted attention.  The majority of burglaries occur during daylight hours with the burglar going through an unlocked door.  If you have a deadbolt it does not good if you don’t lock it.

7.  Here’s another big one for your doors.  Make sure the plate attached to the door jam, the one that the dead bolt goes into, has at least 3 inch screws securing it to the jam.  Most of these plates come packaged with small one-inch screws that go only into the trim surrounding the door.  It’s easy to push the trim off and force the door open.  If the screws go into the surrounding door frame it makes it quite a bit harder to “kick the door.”  You see, we are pushing that time frame up past 11 seconds with this one!

8.     Windows and sliding glass doors need anti-lift devices.  This can be as simple as a broom handle cut to length and dropped in the track of a sliding glass door.  Make sure your windows are locked, just like the front door.  If it’s not locked it is an easy access point.