Resources on Home Security

Understanding Home Burglars and How to Avoid Them
This article on CrimeDoctor.com by security consultant Chris E. McGoey provides some important statistics about home burglary. He gave some tips on how to choose a high quality door knob lock and sliding glass doors, and how to make them more secured. For windows, McGoey has recommendations on how to provide secondary blocking devices. The post also includes tips about home safes; suitable lightings alarm systems, and how to place proper identification on appliances. There also an explanation about the importance of being a good neighbor, and how it can help a lot in avoiding home burglars.

Burglarproof Your Home by No Nonsense Self-Defense
Tips from police on home security, including providing layered defense for your home. A good example of a layered defense is rosebushes outside the window, double-locked, barred and safety coated side windows and something difficult to climb over inside under the window. Stand outside the windows and look in, make sure no valuables, like expensive electronics or artwork, are visible. If you can see your belongings doing this, so can criminals. A common combination of cheap locks and small construction flaws, that we tend not to notice, often give criminals the "cracks" in security they need to break in. Look at the gap between your door and your door frame from the inside - can you see the lock's tongue? All it takes is a flip of the criminal's wrist while holding a screwdriver while on the outside to break away the thin doorjamb molding and expose that same gap. From there, it is another simple wrist gesture to jimmy the tongue out of the faceplate. Put "window stops" on the first floor and basement window frames. These often functionally amount to secondary and tertiary locks. The best kind are those that go through a moveable frame and lock it into place. Something as simple as drilling a hole through both frames when the window is closed and placing a nail in the hole will lock the windows in place.

Keeping Your Kids Safe and Secure in College
Campus Sentinel is a free mobile app for the iPhone and iPad for college campus safety and security. For parents and students, it provides crime statistics for more than 4,400 colleges and universities, safety resources, and security news and information. When you or your college-bound student is looking at schools and going through the application process, this app can be used to understand crime and safety information for the schools under consideration and to compare these schools’ self-reported crime data to one another. Once the student is enrolled and attending school, this app is a great resource for questions regarding safety and security issues both on and off campus. One parent giving a testimonial for Campus Sentinel make the point: For my son in college, I have the information I need to talk with him about important concerns such as how to stay safe while he's studying abroad and how to protect his online reputation. He might not seek out that knowledge on his own, so being informed to have those conversations with him is essential. This app can also be helpful for accessing safety resources and for planning for a safe spring break, or travel abroad experience.

Protecting Your Home, from the City of Wilmington, Ohio
This is a very complete article by the City of Wilmington, Ohio. This site is designed to make your home and your family as safe as is humanly possible. Read the entire article or click on links which will speed you to specific topics within the major article. The specific topics include Controlling Access to your Property with specific recommendations for the types of outside doors to buy, the right peepholes, and the proper locks. Providing Visibility explains the importance of proper outdoor lighting. Maintaining Your Property discusses the importance of keeping your house and yard looking its best and free from trash and other things that could make your property look unattended and inviting to a burglar. Protecting Your Home and Property When You Are Away covers the use of timers for controlling lights, leaving TVs and radios on, etc. Helping the Police Get to Your Home includes making certain that your street number is visible and the best places for it to be, and the importance of leaving entry codes and other security information with your police department if you plan to be away. Finally there is Identifying Your Property, which explains the importance of keeping lists of your valuables and etching an identifying number on your possessions to help police in identifying them in the event a burglar is captured or tries to sell anything.