Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
seen. They have the advantage in this regard if they have been watching
your movements and patterns of activity. For example, if they know you
generally leave the house at 8:00
A
.
M
., they do not need to wait to attack
you outside the front door where they would be likely to be observed. They
will wait on the side of the house, for example, out of your direct view
because they know you will walk right past them on your way out. Prop-
erly positioned cameras afford you the ability to watch the entire outside
area or perimeter. In addition, the mere presence of cameras tells poten-
tial assailants a great deal. It tells them that you are a security-conscious
person and that you might not be as easy a target as you appear.
NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
Another excellent and easy way to enhance security is by cultivating good
relations with your neighbors. It is often said that good fences make
good neighbors. Allow us to make this observation as well: Good neigh-
bors make good fences. People who know you are apt to also know when
things look a bit out of place. If, for example, they know you are away on
vacation and see the lights on in your house, they will most likely call the
police on your behalf. We all know this from personal experience. We have
neighbors, and we know the people who should be at their homes and
who should not. Your neighbor also has a different vantage point from
yours from which to make observations. Agents and police officers rou-
tinely conduct surveillance on criminal suspects. In the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA), we would sit in our cars for hours and sometimes
days while watching bad guys. Unless you are completely inept, you would
never park in front of the target's home. The goal was always to try to find
a place where you could make observations and not be seen by the subject
of the surveillance. So you would park down the block or on an intersect-
ing corner. The subject rarely realized that he was being watched. How-
ever, we were routinely scrutinized or even questioned by the people who
lived in the house we were parked in front of. Many times neighbors called
the police, and sector cars would pull up in response to calls about a sus-
picious vehicle parked in front of a home. On several occasions we even
had neighbors calling the target of the surveillance and discussing the
suspicious cars out front. Sometimes these people obviously intended to
alert the criminal that the cops were around. More often than not, though,
the person who called had no idea that his neighbor was a crook and was
