Doors and Locks

 by Chris E McGoey, CPP, CSP, CAM

                   

The first step is to “harden the target” or make your home more difficult to enter. Remember, the burglar will simply bypass your home if it requires too much effort or requires more skill and tools than they possess. Most burglars enter via the front, back, or garage doors. Experienced burglars know that the garage door is usually the weakest point of entry followed by the back door. The garage and back doors also provide the most cover.

Burglars know to look inside your car for keys and other valuables so keep it locked, even when parked inside your garage. Use high quality Grade-1 or Grade-2 locks on exterior doors to resist twisting, prying, and lock-picking attempts. A quality deadbolt lock will have a beveled casing to inhibit the use of channel-lock pliers used to shear off lock cylinder pins. A quality door knob-in-lock set will have a ‘dead latch’ mechanism to prevent slipping the lock with a shim or credit card.

• Use a solid core or metal door for all entrance points
• Use a quality, heavy-duty, deadbolt lock with a one-inch throw bolt
• Use a quality, heavy-duty, knob-in-lock set with a dead-latch mechanism
• Use a heavy-duty, four-screw, strike plate with 3-inch screws to penetrate into a wooden door frame
• Use a wide-angle 160° peephole mounted no higher than 58 inches

The most common way used to force entry through a door with a wooden jamb is to simply kick it open. The weakest point is almost always the lock strike plate that holds the latch or lock bolt in place followed by a glass paneled door. The average door strike plate is secured only by the soft-wood doorjamb molding. These lightweight moldings are often tacked on to the door frame and can be torn away with a firm kick. Because of this construction flaw, it makes sense to upgrade to a four-screw, heavy-duty, high security strike plate. They are available in most quality hardware stores and home improvement centers and are definitely worth the extra expense. Install this heavy-duty strike plate using 3-inch wood screws to cut deep into the door frame stud. Use these longer screws in the knob lock strike plate as well and use at least one long screw in each door hinge. This one step alone will deter or prevent most through-the-door forced entries. You and your family will sleep safer in the future.

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Home Security

by Chris E McGoey, CPP, CSP, CAM

Your home is your castle…or is it? Is your home really safe once you leave for work or school? Your home is considered a sanctuary where you should feel safe. Your home is the only environment where you have control over who can get close to you or your family. Protecting your home and family from criminal intrusion should be high on your list of priorities. See my web site on Family Security Tips for more information on protecting your family from harm.

Home Burglary

By far, the most common threat to our home is burglary. According to the FBI, a burglary occurs somewhere in the United States every 15.4 seconds. By definition, the crime of burglary is a non-confrontational property crime that occurs when we are not at home. However, becoming a burglary victim can leave a family feeling vulnerable and violated. To avoid becoming a burglary victim, it is important to first gain an understanding of who commits them and why.

The majority of home and apartment burglaries occur during the daytime when most people are away at work or school. The summer months of July and August have the most burglaries with February having the fewest crimes. Burglaries are committed most often by young males under 25 years of age looking for items that are small, expensive, and can easily be converted to cash. Favorite items are cash, jewelry, guns, watches, laptop computers, VCRs, video players, CDs and other small electronic devices are high on the list. Quick cash is needed for living expenses and drugs. Statistics tell us that 70% of the burglars use some amount force to enter a dwelling, but their preference is to gain easy access through an open door or window. Ordinary household tools like screwdrivers, channel-lock pliers, small pry bars, and small hammers are most often used by burglars. Burglars continue to flourish because police can only clear about 13% of all reported burglaries and rarely catch the thief in the act.

Although home burglaries may seem random in occurrence, they actually involve a selection process. The burglar’s selection process is simple. Choose an unoccupied home with the easiest access, the greatest amount of cover, and with the best escape routes.

Minimize your risk by making your home unattractive to burglars.

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One of the things you don’t want to be worrying about while you’re on vacation is whether or not your home is secure. The best way to keep your home from becoming a target is to keep it from being obvious that you’re gone. Burglars don’t want to come face to face with homeowners, so they will go for the easier target first, the house where clearly no one is at home. Here are some tips for making sure it’s not easy for burglars to tell you’re away:

• Don’t tell people the dates you’re going to be on vacation unless they need to know.
• Put a few of the lights in your house on timers so they go on automatically at night. Use a program that suggests the element of randomness (lights go on at different times on different days), so a burglar who might be staking out the place won’t know for sure if anybody is there or not.
• Cancel your newspaper delivery so papers don’t pile up on the stoop.
• Have a friend or relative pick up your mail (or you can arrange to have it held at the post office).
• Leave a car parked in the driveway.

Before you leave home, don’t forget to…

• Doublecheck the locks on your doors and windows before you leave. Make sure you set your home security alarm if you have one.
• Store your valuables in a secure safe that is hidden from anyone who may be peeking in a window.

If you return from your trip and find that you have been burglarized, don’t touch anything. Immediately leave the premises and call the police from the nearest phone. Remember, the burglar could still be inside.

Simple DIY Home Security System:  Security System

Outdoor Motion Detecting Floodlights:  Outdoor Motion Monitor with Floodlight
Article Information Source: Tom Patire’s Personal Protection Handbook

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