I have a pet-peeve with the current spate of "anti-theft" apps for mobile devices. My problem doesn't lie with their technology. Nope, my issue is with their marketing. There are a plethora of these apps that are being called "crime prevention tools". I know what you're thinking, "But if someone takes my cell phone, this app will use the GPS to track my phone and send me an email so I can tell the police where to get my phone." True, but answer this question - What crime did it stop? Seriously, what crime did your app stop? And therein lies the problem with the app and with how we view crime prevention.
Part of the reason we have such a high rate of crime in this country resides mostly in our definition of "crime prevention". Many times, we mistakenly believe "prevention" relies on the response to the crime. A faster recovery means we've sent a message to the bad guys that they can't take our stuff without the cops coming to get them. Stop laughing. That's the message the creative marketing teams behind these apps and other products will have you believe. Remember Nancy Reagan's "just say no" campaign and the "war on drugs/crime". Those sent a clear message to the bad guys - we have no clue how to stop you.
Stopping crime is a noble objective but no crime is totally preventable. As a matter of fact, it's a safe bet that at some point in your life, you will be a victim of a crime. After 10 years of doing law enforcement in the military and my current job, I have an idea as to why this is. Simply put, the reason you will be a victim of crime at some point in your life rests in two places and neither of which needs the other for the crime to take place.
The first place where the crime onset takes place is with the criminal. Remember what I said a few posts ago about how the attacker will ultimately attack you regardless of what you do? The same idea applies here. You can't control what an attacker will do. If he/she is motivated and skilled enough, which are two things you can't always plan on, there is very little you can do beforehand to stop them. That's not a defeatist attitude. This is me directing you to the second place where the crime onset occurs - the victim.
Victims, typically, do a lot of things good before an attack occurs but they also do some things terribly wrong. Where things go wrong for them is in their attitude - "I never thought it would happen to me.....But I lock my doors....Why me?" There are loads of reasons you were selected to be a victim. None of which you may have had any control over. It is for this reason I think we need a new crime strategy - crime mitigation.
As we've discussed before, your attitude towards crime mitigation has to be proactive. You have to be thinking about the best way to lower your chances of being a victim and lessening the damage from an attack. Whether you purchase a smart phone or sports car, you should have a proactive attitude towards engaging the threat. Buying an alarm or an app won't stop theft but planning on it to happen at some point may not only mitigate the damage but provide more creative solutions to prevent the loss from happening in the first place.
