# How to handle theft, burglaries, and mugging

Keep your on-person possessions in inconspicuous, unexpected places:

- Don't use your front or back pockets.
- Don't bring a purse.
- Use inner pockets of jackets.
- Hang things around your neck or in a shirt pocket.
- Carry things in a slim waist pack.
- Keep all your legitimate valuables in one wallet, and a $10 bill with unimportant things in a second wallet that you can give to muggers.

Always lock your doors and windows whenever you leave your home or auto.

Get a heavy safe (such as a gun safe) to hold your valuables:

- Avoid using diversion safes (e.g., whipped topping, canned food), since thieves often know about them.
- Avoid portable safes, since they're very convenient for thieves to steal.
- Alternately, stuff a portable safe with rebar.

Hide your valuables in places nobody will think of looking (but don't forget about them!):

- Inside a clean diaper
- Taped inside a bathroom sink cabinet on top
- Behind power outlets
- Buried inside a container
- Inside your phone's case

Consider a home security system, either by making one yourself or with a paid service.

One of the most powerful security elements you can have, despite the cultural [issues](people-conflicts.md) around them, is to have guns and everyone in the home knows how to safely use them:

1. Always assume every gun is loaded, always double-check, and never trust others or your memory.
2. Ask before touching a gun if you don't know how to operate it.
3. If a gun has a removable magazine, always check the chamber after removing the magazine.
4. Since you may mess up on the above, always keep the gun pointed a safe direction, never sweep the gun across other people or look down the barrel, and the only safe direction in a shooting range is down-range.
5. Since you may mess up on the above, never keep your finger on the trigger unless it's aimed, and you're ready to fire.
6. When firing, know what your target is and what's beyond it, since the bullet often goes through objects.

Always answer anyone who knocks on your door at night:

- If you don't, they'll assume you're not home or asleep.
- Always turn your light on before opening the door.
- Carefully examine their face, which makes them less likely to rob you.

Make sure you've [virus-scanned](computers-cysec.md) your computer and are [safely using the internet](safety-security.md).

## Pickpocketing

Pickpocketers will closely track, and often manipulate, your attention.

Learn to pay close attention to any movement out of the corner of your eye, as well as any attempts to misdirect your gaze.

There are different ways to manipulate someone's attention:

- Overwhelm someone's attention by using lots of movement at once ("fanning").
- Split someone's attention by doing something and then splitting it into two things.
- Drawing someone's attention to one specific thing, thereby removing their attention from everything else.

There are degrees of complexity for stealing personal effects:

1. Table steal: grabs something readily available as soon as someone isn't looking.
   - They may use a "shade" to hide the object from view.
2. Outside breast pocket: grabs something in a shirt pocket.
   - This is an easy steal that requires using the mark's movement to hide the action (e.g., dropping and picking something up).
3. ID badge steal: grab something off a lanyard or necklace.
   - This requires several seconds maintaining eye contact, which requires someone saying something close to that person's personal space.
   - The approach to heat is an exception to most maneuvers because calling attention to the badge allows the thief to draw into someone's personal space ("painting it red").
   - Further, there is a clasp released at that exact moment, so the script will usually include a finger snap or other loud noise.
4. Outside jacket pocket: pulling out of an exterior clothing pocket.
   - This one often happens in crowded locations, where the cover and shade come from the environment.
   - Sometimes, the thief will distract the mark with another gesture on the other side of their body, which will hide the "dip" from stealing the object.
5. Watch steal: unclasping a watch from someone's hand.
   - This is more difficult in non-[performance](business-show.md) capacities, and requires building [rapport](mind-trust.md) for people to drop their attention.
   - The approach can involve palm-reading, a magic trick, or having someone hold their hand out for some other reason that conditions the mark for the thief's touch.
   - This is delicate, since there are many motions that can trigger the touch.
   - Traditional watches are more difficult than modern elastic watches because the clasp can re-engage on a looser hole.
6. Pants pocket steal: the most well-known steam.
   - Sometimes, they'll steal the object when the mark's pants are down in a bathroom stall.
   - First, the thief will usually "tap the poke" by pushing the wallet/phone from the bottom first.
   - When they do it, it's very close to themark's body, and therefore requires them to get very close.
   - This isn't the most complex, and professional thieves can take things from someone's inside jacket pocket or even their necktie.

## If someone is breaking into your home

Depending on the situation, it may make more sense to confront, hide, or run from them, so understand [what your rights are](legal-safety.md) beforehand.

Thieves often work in pairs.

- They don't typically want to risk getting hurt or identified, and usually just want your laptop and valuable items.

## If someone might mug or rob you at gunpoint

Burglaries may be done with partners, or solo.

- If you work at a store and are by yourself at night, do *not* stand around the register.
  - Instead, stay somewhere where they'd have to hunt you down first, since it's hard to direct someone to a cash register from the back of the store.

## How to recover from the trauma and loss

When people steal things from you, you'll likely feel a sense of anger about it.

- The things you valued have now been unfairly taken.
- Very often, you'll never see those things again, even if [insurance](money-insurance.md) pays you at least partly for the damages.

However, compared to many other things, your possessions aren't that important.

- If nobody gets hurt, you and those you love are fortunate.
- What you're likely *more* upset about than losing your possessions is the feeling that someone can violate your boundaries so inconsiderately.

You can't do anything about what you've lost, so learn to be [safer](safety-security.md) for the future and learn to [forgive and release](hardship-forgiveness.md).