How the Lousy Economy Can Impact Your Personal Safety

Everyone's attention is on the economy. You wake up with the Asian market numbers, pensively check your investments throughout the day, then end the day with the Dow heading lower than the day before. The news is all about the economy, blogs are all about the economy, and people's priorities include debt, keeping their jobs, and paying for daily necessities. Notice how nowhere in there do people talk about personal safety? They should. In a difficult economy, there are a number of factors that can directly impact your personal safety. These include:

• Cities, counties, and states are facing huge budget deficits. All are now hacking away at their budgets to make the expenses column meet the income column. Among the cuts that many of these entities are making is to law enforcement, namely the number of law enforcement officers who will be on the streets to protect you and deter crime.
• An article here states that one city is looking at not investigating thefts under $10,000 in value and making thefts under $10,000 a misdemeanor instead of a felony which I'm guessing will encourage more thefts since the probability of getting caught is lower and if you do get caught, the penalty will be less.
• A number of articles, this one for example, have pointed out that crime increases during a bad economy because people have less money for food and other items (shoplifting and embezzlement), they are losing their homes and become homeless (property crimes), they are desperate (robberies, burglaries, gas thefts, metal thefts, et al), they are pissed off (violence), etc. although there was a bright spot to this situation here.

With that in mind, here are some ideas for protecting yourself (bad economy or not):

• Prepare!
• Use Common Sense
• Make Your Home Secure
• Research
• Consider Your Defense Options