Keeping Kids Safe

Would your child know what to do if the babysitter wanted to play a "secret game that no one would know about?" Would he or she know where to get help if something frightening happened and you weren't around?

Parents can take positive actions to protect their children and help them learn how to respond to threatening situations.

  1. Walk your neighborhood with your children. Show them safe places they can go in an emergency, like a neighbor's house, a McGruff's Safe House, or an open store. Make sure they are taking the safest route to school.
  2. Check your neighborhood for areas that threaten children's safety-brush in wooded areas, high shrubbery, abandoned buildings, bad lighting.
  3. Rehearse with children their full name, address, and phone number (including area code) and how to make emergency phone calls from home and public phone booths.
  4. Make certain children are alone or isolated as little as possible. Encourage them to walk and play with friends and stay in well-lighted, open areas where others can see them.
  5. If you must ever leave a child at home alone, leave a number where you or a neighbor can be reached.
  6. Thoroughly check the background of baby-sitters and day care center personnel.
  7. Teach your children that no one-even someone they know-has the right to touch them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable. Tell them they can and should share any such experiences with you.
  8. If you and your spouse are not living together, make sure your children know exactly
  9. the days they are supposed to be with each parent, and that they always have a right to call you from wherever they are.
  10. LISTEN CAREFULLY TO YOUR CHILDREN. Let them know they can talk to you about anything and you will always love them and want them to be with you'.

Crime Prevention Tips for the Disabled

Disabled individuals, the same as the able-bodied, can take responsibility for protecting themselves and their communities against crime. Unfortunately, criminals often prey on persons with handicaps, assuming they cannot readily protect themselves. And the disabled may develop predictable patterns of activities that make them vulnerable to victimization.

Like all persons young and old, the disabled should be alert to their surroundings and take common-sense precautions inside and outside their homes with regard to locks on doors and windows, answering the phone and door, driving, and traveling on public transportation. If you have a physical or sensory impairment, however, it's particularly important to:

  1. Vary your activities, routes, and times of departure.
  2. Let family or friends know where you are going and what time you expect to return home.
  3. Travel with someone you know whenever possible.
  4. Carry enough money for telephone and emergency use, but never carry or display large amounts of cash.
  5. Take into account your limitations arid decide what you are prepared to do if confronted by an assailant.
  6. Know your neighbors and decide which ones you could rely on in an emergency.
  7. Never let strange phone callers know you are alone or disabled.
  8. Use Direct Deposit for government payments to you.
  9. Keep your money, keys, and credit cards in an inside pocket or hidden on your person.
  10. When using public transportation, ride as near to the operator as possible.
  11. Be aware of your body language. Transmit confidence and certainty.
  12. Be involved: Help your Neighborhood Watch with newsletter and telephone calls. Join a Window Watch to keep an eye out for unusual activity in your neighborhood. Help out a neighbor who's been a recent victim of crime. The more active you are, the safer you'll be - and the safer your neighborhood will be.

TIPS FOR WORKING PARENTS

  1. If your children are to be in charge of themselves at home, talk about activities they can do and the routines they are to follow. Discuss family policies on entertaining and visiting friends and what to do when the phone or door bell rings.
  2. Have children - teens too - check in with you at work or with a neighbor when they come home from school. Be sure they memorize your work phone number and give this number to a neighbor too. Post it next to the phone, along with numbers for a neighbor, police, and fire department. Let your kids know when you will be home.
  3. Check out babysitters and day care centers carefully. Ask for references and call them!
  4. Instruct children and babysitters not to give out any information about who is at home. who is out, and for how long.
  5. Get together with your neighbors, PTA, Boys Club/Girls Club, and schools to provide after school activities as an alternative to leaving a child at home alone
  6. Talk to your employer about employer-supported child care options. These can range from an on-site day care center to summer day camps, information and referral services, and financial assistance.
  7. Establish a block parent program to keep kids safe as they walk to and from school. Rely on elderly residents, housekeepers, and mothers at home with young children and reward them with parties, a home-cooked meal, or babysitting vouchers.
  8. Encourage schools to offer survival skills training where children learn safety measures such as fire safety, accident prevention, and first aid, as well as personal safety and sexual abuse prevention tips.
  9. Work with the PTA, youth clubs, local Y, or churches to establish a warm line that latchkey children can call if they're scared or lonely.
  10. See if churches or other community groups offer "rap" sessions for teenagers.
  11. Take time to listen to your kids - what they're doing, what's going on with their friends and school, their high points and low points.

 Workplace Crime Prevention Tips

  1. Keep your purse, wallet, or other valuable items with you at all times or locked in a drawer or closet.
  2. Check the identification of any strangers who ask for confidential information or any delivery or repair persons who want to enter an area restricted to employees.
  3. Be discreet. Don't advertise your social life or vacation plans, or those of your fellow employees, to strangers visiting your place of work.
  4. Park in well-lighted and well-traveled areas.
  5. If you must work late or at odd hours, walk with a group or ask another employee or security guard to escort you to your car.
  6. If you notice any suspicious persons or vehicles, notify security personnel or police. Trust your instincts and never hesitate to report anything that makes you feel uneasy.
  7. What if you do become a victim? Stay calm, try not to panic or show any signs of anger or confusion. Try to compose an accurate description of the assailant to help police. Report all crimes to the police immediately.
  8. For your own sake, and to protect others, take the time and effort to pursue your case through the courts.
  9. Take Action Today!
  10. Ask your employer to sponsor crime prevention and victim survival training for employees.
  11. Assess your workplace's vulnerability to crime. Look at access control, locks and doors, visibility, lighting, parking arrangements, secure places for employees' belongings. Give your suggestions to management.
  12. If a co-worker is a victim of crime, be supportive. Help with things like getting to court and contacting a victim service program.

 VICTIM ASSISTANCE AND CRIME PREVENTION

It is the victim who comes forth to report crime and testify in court. Without this cooperation there is no justice system. So, any individual or organization that assists a victim is also fighting crime. Victim assistance is an important part of any community crime prevention effort. Such programs not only encourage victims to report and testify, but also show that the community cares about its residents.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

  1. Help your local crime prevention group sensitize members to victim needs and develop a directory of community resources that help victims.
  2. Visit a neighbor who has been a victim. Be supportive. Be present.
  3. Accompany a neighbor who has been victimized to court for hearings and the trial.
  4. Lobby for victim rights at the local, state, and national level. Investigate and upgrade victim compensation laws in your state.
  5. See if your employer has a policy giving employees who are victimized leave without loss of pay for testifying in court. Start an in-house victim assistance program.
  6. Organize a Court Watch to monitor courts' responsiveness to victims.

FOR INFORMATION ON VICTIM ASSISTANCE, CONTACT:
National Organization for Victim Assistance 717 D Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004 2021393-6682
National Victim Resource Center
Office for Victims of Crime
U.S. Department of Justice
633 Indiana Ave.. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20531
202/724-6134

 IF YOU'RE THE VICTIM OF A CRIME . . . 

Report the crime to the local law enforcement agency immediately to prevent others from being victimized. BUT, when you undertake this responsibility, you as a victim are entitled to certain rights.

1 . A right to be treated with dignity and compassion.

2. A right to protection against intimidation from your attacker.

3. A right to information about the progress of your case.

4. A right to be informed about victim services and victim compensation laws in your community.

5. A right to equal treatment in court, such as being consulted about bail, plea bargaining, and when vou will be needed to testify.

6. A right to the prompt return of your property if it is recovered by police.

  1. BE AWARE that any victimization is a traumatic event. Psychologists have identified three stages common to most victims.
  2. IMPACT - The victim feels vulnerable and out-of-control immediately after the crime.
  3. RECOIL - The victim constructs defenses to cope with the trauma, including the development of phobias or denial of emotions - anger, fear, guilt - produced by the victimization.
  4. REORGANIZATION - The victim finally works through these painful and contradictory feelings and gradually becomes less absorbed with the crime.
  5. TAKE ACTION: Testify in court. Join a local crime prevention organization. Talk to friends and neighbors about the crime and ask them to accompany you to court. Contact your local victim assistance program or community mental health center for help.

Crime Prevention Tips for Senior Citizens

Help make your community a safer place to live and don't let fear of crime restrict your activities. Being alert to your surroundings, installing good locks on doors and windows, and taking common-sense precautions while inside and outside your home can reduce opportunities for crime. To give yourself that extra margin of security:

  1. Use Direct Deposit for pension and Social Security checks.
  2. Don't display large amounts of cash in public.
  3. Be wary of talkative strangers when the conversation turns to money. Read every newspaper report on con games and be ready to say no if someone comes to you with a get-rich quick scheme.
  4. Travel with friends when you leave home to go shopping, to the bank, or doctor.
  5. Get to know your neighbors and keep their phone numbers handy for emergencies.
  6. Work out a "buddy" system with a friend to check on each other's welfare daily.
  7. If you're alone, don't advertise it. Use only your first initial in phone books, directories, and apartment lobbies.
  8. If you must carry a purse, hold it close to your body. Don't leave your wallet or purse on a counter or in a shopping cart unattended.
  9. If you are threatened by physical force, don't resist. Remain calm and observe the assailant so you can give an accurate description to the police.
  10. Join to help make your neighborhood thrive. You could be a foster grandparent or a block parent for children in an emergency. Join a Window Watch to keep an eye out for unusual activity in your neighborhood or help a neighbor who's been a recent victim of crime. A neighborhood where people are active and involved is always a safer, better place to be.

A Home Safety Quiz

  1. Do you know if any burglaries or acts of vandalism have occurred in your neighborhood recently?

  2. Do you know your neighbors? Do you look out for them? Do they look out for you?

  3. Is your shrubbery trimmed so it doesn't cover any doors or windows?

  4. Are your external doors made of solid wood or metal?

  5. Do they have deadbolt locks?

  6. Have you properly secured all means of entry, including sliding glass doors, skylights, and basement windows?

  7. Do you use your door and window locks, even when working in the yard, running an errand, or just being in the house?

  8. Does your front door have a peephole and do you use it?

  9. Do you avoid hiding keys outside the house?

  10. Have you marked valuable property with numbers recommended by the police?

  11. Do your children know not to open the door to strangers and not to give your address to strangers over the telephone?

  12. Do you alert a neighbor when you'll be away from home for more than a day?

  13. Do you use timers to turn lights and radios on and off when you're on vacation?

  14. Are vacant lots in your neighborhood cleaned up?

  15. Have you joined a neighborhood crime watch or apartment watch organization?

If you answered "yes" to all 15 questions, congratulations! A score of 10 or more indicates your home is fairly secure. Under 10? You're a good target and should make your home safer.

GOOD NEIGHBORS CAN CUT CRIME

Crime and fear of crime threaten a community's social fabric - people become afraid to use streets and parks, suspicion erupts between young and old, and shops gradually leave. Crime in turn feeds on the social isolation it creates.

You and your neighbors can prevent or break this vicious cycle, and in the process, build your community into a safe, friendly, and caring place to live.

TEENS THEY CAN BE THE SOLUTION - NOT THE PROBLEM

Adults often stereotype teens by blaming them for neighborhood problems and complaining they are irresponsible. In fact, youths aged 12 to 19 are more frequently victimized by crime than adults! Teens need to develop a sense of competence, usefulness, and belonging to help them mature into responsible grownups. They are an untapped source of energy, enthusiasm., and talent that communities often ignore. Cities, suburbs, and towns across the country are discovering that mixing teens and crime prevention produces a partnership that benefits everyone.