The reason I used the term stupid people in the title of this article is that I have seen people, seemingly intelligent people, for years after being told of the great perils of keeping their doors unlocked, completely ignore advice to do so. Dr. Ron Sanchez is a supervising psychologist at the Utah State Prison who works with sex offenders. He says, “As I’ve worked with rapists, I’ve asked them how do you go about gaining access to houses and many of them said they would look for an open window or unlocked door and just go in the houses. I was amazed to find out how many houses that they encountered had doors unlocked.”
Furthermore, according to the FBI, of the estimated 2,222,196 burglaries committed nationwide in 2008, 32.2 percent were unlawful entries without force. A 2008 survey by State Farm Insurance of 1,000 homes across the country reported that fewer than half of those surveyed always locked their front doors. In that same year the commanding police officer of the 19th Precinct on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which includes ritzy Park Avenue doorman buildings, brownstones and apartment houses estimates that 25 percent of burglaries are a result of an open door or window.
Similarly to some people who are closed minded to varied political beliefs where they only see stats that go along with their internal feeling, it’s similar with some peoples security needs. “A person’s perception of safety is not necessarily tied to statistics,” says Lois Braverman, the president of the Ackerman Institute for the Family in New York, which trains mental health workers. “A person’s idea of safety is tied to variables that are very illogical but are part of the story they tell themselves.”
And many of these people become victims. Years ago, I worked a case where a nighttime serial burglar went from house to house and checked home’s doors. If he found an open one, he’d enter and burglarize it. He passed up every home that had locked doors. He did this for months and he was never caught. Imagine if he would have had rape on his mind rather than burglary.
Some people think that it’s alright to leave their doors unlocked for an hour or two, here and there. The feeling being, hey, it’s only an hour. In several weeks, that hour, here and there, becomes 24 hours of having your doors open.
Home Depot and Lowe’s sells doors and windows. Just about every single one has locks on them. Why? To lock them! For peoples safety! Today’s society in America is a mobile one. A great neighborhood can be a 30 minute drive from a cesspool of crime neighborhood. All people have to do is hop in a car and start trying doors—open doors. And great neighborhoods, perhaps your neighborhood, have bad people. They have perverts, rapists and more.
There’s a rape every six minutes in America. Help security experts help you. Drop your feeling that you may know better because you’ve never “felt” vulnerable. And if you’ve been repeatedly told to lock up and still refuse to do it—stop being stupid! Do it for your loved ones, do it for you—you deserve not to be a victim! Lock your doors . . . always!
Steve's a three-time survivor of violence in his youth, a former police supervisor and a graduate of The Police Executive Leadership College (PELC) and was also an award winning part-time college Criminal Justice instructor.
For several years, Steve did written and radio political and current event commentary and was the former host of the long running 'The Kovacs Perspective' Internet radio and TV talk show.
Steve presently owns a small businesses in Ohio--The Mayfield Academy of Self-Defense.
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