Recently there has been a video clip taken from a Woollies store, where a customer had her purse or mobile phone stolen from her open handbag that was in her shopping trolley. Now, understandably there was a choir of the usual - lots of people telling the world how gatvol they are of crime etc. Sure, we can get that bit, we all are. But then one also should be able to take a good, hard and honest look at a crime such as the one in question, as it was actually 100% preventable. In fact, a lot of crime is preventable. But a general slack approach with regard to personal safety and crime is at the order of the day with so many people, that we are actually making life pretty damn easy for criminals. In the mentioned video clip - a lot of you might have seen it by now - the victim of the crime and her partner are doing the usual shopping motions. A lady walks by and notices that the victims handbag is standing on the child seat of their trolley - practically unguarded, and wide open. She clearly noticed an item that she wanted to get hold of as she walked past, then returned and pretended to be searching for something on the shelves. What she was really doing, was waiting for a chance to strike. Yes - EXACTLY like a predator, because criminals are human predators. They want the softest, easiest target as well. So when she judged the victim couple to be sufficiently distracted by the goodies on the shelves, she simply reached into the open bag, took the item and walked away all cool, calm and collected. It took maybe a second. The victim carried on shopping, and probably only realized the loss when she tried to pay. Oblivious. What could have prevented this crime? 1) Higher levels of awareness - go read up on the Cooper Colour Code of Awareness again. 2) Not leaving the handbag unattended on the trolley. Of course its more of a hassle having it on your person whilst shopping. But it still beats having to stop credit cards, phone cards, id books etc. It also beats that sinking feeling when you realize what happened. 3) Mindset adjustment - a lot of people will shout out the question - yes but WHY do we have to look over our shoulder the whole time, why can I not leave my handbag on my trolley, why do I have to lock my security gates - why why why. Quite frankly, that is an alien mindset to me. This is South Africa, 2014. Crime is everywhere. By pretending it will not affect you and living life as if this is some crime free Utopia (if you find such a place on earth, let us know) only means that some criminal will burst your bubble at some stage. So you have to either change your mindset, or stop complaining about crime. Its that simple. If you leave your handbag open on your trolley like that, and some enterprising criminal takes advantage - YOU played a direct role in getting the item stolen. Your safety and your security starts with you. You can argue that the criminal made a choice, that government is creating an environment in which criminals flourish, the police this and the security company that - some actions taken by yourself can go a very long way of totally preventing a crime from happening or from being successful to begin with. How can you expect the Police or security company to wipe your tushy 24/7/365? Even in that Utopia of the best life can offer, NZ or Aussie - they do not have enough police members to assign one per citizen. So the police and the security company is by and large a reactive force. In other words - You will call them AFTER your purse got stolen out of your open handbag. 4) Pro Active - not reactive. By starting to become pro-active about crime, you will automatically start doing things like lock those gates at all times, carry your handbag under your arm, not putting the box of your new flat screen tv on the street for the world to see, and raise your awareness levels. Is it foolproof? Of course not. Nothing is. But by pro actively starting to minimize your odds of becoming a crime victim, you are buying much more peace of mind. And that sure as hell beats being the victim of a crime that should never have happened to begin with. Being Vigilant at all times. QCW is not here to SCARE or a Paranoia organization we are here to Protect and give advice on Personal safety.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 13:55:16 +0000
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