Safety Starts At Home – Law Officer

There are over 580,000 houses that get broken into each year in the U.S. 

While sometimes no one is home when predators break in, other times people are home. In November 2023, in a small rural Maine community, there were two unrelated home invasions in the middle of the night, in two neighboring towns. One of these home invasions was a male under the influence of drugs who broke into a home that only had a mother with her newborn child inside at the time. Can you imagine being home at night with your children, asleep, and someone breaks into your home? Do you have a plan? What would you do?

Just as we were taught as kids, to have a plan in the event there was ever a fire, we must also have a plan for the safety of our homes. Yet many people tell themselves that they live in a “safe neighborhood” and “that will never happen to me”. For perspective purposes, the home invasions I shared above, were in very “safe” neighborhoods where there is low crime. The truth is, violence and crime is spreading, getting worse and can happen to anyone anywhere. The best thing for you to do is become a hard target and you do that by education and being a couple steps ahead. 

Turn your home into a hard target with these tips:

First, you must think like a predator. Before you run out and buy a camera or security system (which I do suggest, but let’s get there in a minute), you need to take a step back and fully evaluate your home in its entirety. 

Start by going outside of your home near the road or wherever the public can see your house. 

• Analyze from there and ask yourself if you were a person looking to break into someone’s home, what do you see?
• What are the easy access points and how can you make them harder to get into?
• What is an easy way in, where no one would see you and what is an easy way out in a hurry?
•  Do you have places surrounding your house where predators could easily hide and you or your family would not see them (ordinarily)?
• Are your doors and windows locked?
• What kind of locks do you have on your doors? Deadbolts are a MUST.
• Do you have some sort of wooden dowel securing your window with your AC in so someone cannot easily push it out?
• After you purchase new expensive items, what do you do with the boxes they came in? Do not put them at the end of your driveway! People will know what is in your house now!
• Do you have motion sensor lights installed around your house?
• Is your house lit up? Remember, criminals like the dark as they are less apt to be seen, meaning less apt to get caught. 
• Do you have security cameras?  Cop Tip: You need to get some that are high definition so the police can see vehicles and license plates clearly)

Many of these tips people do not think of when it comes to making their homes safe. The truth is, this is just the tip of the iceberg! We will continue with more tips on how to protect your home in the next article. But for now, this is a good start. I don’t want to overwhelm you and I want you to actually take action! 

Here’s to your path of becoming a hard target and always staying difficult!

Autumn Clifford is the founder of She’s An Asset Women’s Self-Protection. She is the host of the “She’s An Asset Podcast” and can be contacted on instagram @@theautumnclifford. Find out more about Autumn and her dynamic programs here.