Security, mindset and training

The drills. A plan you have never rehearsed is a guess.

• SC1 The layers before hardwareAlmost everything that reduces the chance of trouble at a house costs nothing and involves no locks. Being overlooked, being lit, looking occupied and knowing your neighbours do more than any product, and they work while you are asleep.Quick actions, 9 steps
• SC2 Avoiding trouble and calming it downThe reliable skill is leaving early, and it works far more often than anything that happens after a confrontation has started. Everything here is about giving the other person a way out that does not cost them anything.Quick actions, 8 steps
• SC3 The law on defending yourselfIn England and Wales you may use reasonable force to defend yourself, another person or your property, you are judged on the situation as you honestly believed it to be, and there is no duty to retreat. Householders get more latitude than that, and none of it is a reason to go looking.Quick actions, 9 steps
• SC4 Securing a property you are leavingWater off, power off, gas off, and a neighbour who knows. Most damage to an empty house comes from a burst pipe rather than from anybody breaking in, and most of the rest comes from the house obviously looking empty.Quick actions, 8 steps
• SC5 What actually detersA dog that barks and a house that is clearly occupied do more than most of what is sold. Cameras are mainly evidence rather than deterrence, they bring real legal duties if they see beyond your boundary, and a fake camera deters nobody.Quick actions, 9 steps
• SC6 Situational awareness without paranoiaAwareness is knowing what normal looks like where you are, so the unusual registers on its own. It is not scanning for threats, which is exhausting, unsustainable, and makes you worse at noticing rather than better.Quick actions, 8 steps
• SC7 Community and mutual aidThe most effective preparedness measure available to a household is the people within a few hundred metres of it, and it is the only one that cannot be bought on the day. Start with knowing names, and be the person who offers first.Quick actions, 9 steps
• SC8 Practising, and a household drill programmeA plan that has never been done is a document, not a plan. Six short drills a year, each taking minutes, find the seized stopcock and the dead torch while they are still inconveniences rather than the reason something went badly.Quick actions, 9 steps
• SC9 Teaching children safety without frightening themGive them one instruction with no branches, practise it as an ordinary thing, and answer questions honestly at the level they asked. Competence reduces fear; withheld information does not, because children fill the gap with something worse.Quick actions, 9 steps