Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 21
Criminal Activity
THE CHANCES THAT YOU WILL BECOME the victim of terrorism
abroad are relatively low. Adherence to the basic rules of safety will
bring those odds down even further. As mentioned, you have a far greater
chance of becoming a crime victim, at home or abroad, than you have of
winding up in the middle of a terror operation. The question that you should
be asking yourself at this point is “If I am more likely to become a victim of
common crime, then why is the chapter on crime prevention the next to last
one in a topic about security?” The answer is simply that all of the counter-
terrorism techniques that we have discussed are effective against the crim-
inal element as well. As a rule, the potential for harm is greater during a
terrorist incident. Therefore, we elected to discuss terrorism as the subject
of prime concern in this topic. If you learn how to defeat a terrorist, you will
learn crime prevention techniques as well. There are just a few additional
important items that the issue of criminal activity requires us to address.
Criminal activity may be broken down into several types for purposes
of our discussion. At home, we frequently hear about white-collar crime
as distinguished from violent crime, and property crime as opposed to
crimes directed at the person. Whatever the nature of the crime, we all run
the risk of being affected by criminal activity. We must take precautions to
prevent all types of criminal victimization; we need to secure both our
property as well as our person.
The first step in taking specific precautions to prevent criminal con-
duct is to learn as much as possible about the specific criminal trends pres-
ent in the country you are traveling to or residing in. Every country has its
own particular criminal industry. Often you can obtain information about
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