What is Personal Safety & Self-Protection?

Whilst most people are familiar with the idea of self-defense i.e., physical techniques that can be used to legally defend a person from a violent assault etc., many don’t realize that there is a whole preventative side to personal safety known as self-protection; self-defense is what you implement, when your self-protection processes and tactics fail etc. Self-protection requires an education into how offenders engage various criminal activities, including violent crimes. It looks at the different criminal processes that are used to gain access to people and assets, and the decision-making factors that are at play when offending. By understanding how offenders think, plan and act along with the locations that they find are conducive to certain crimes, it becomes possible to predict, identify and avoid being victimized by predatory individuals. If avoidance is not an option, then early identification of a threat/danger means that we have the time to better prepare ourselves to deal with it physically, rather than being taken by surprise i.e., it is good self-protection that allows our self-defense techniques and skills to be effective etc.

By recognizing that not all violence is the same e.g., some incidents are internally driven and motivated by perpetrators with specific goals (muggings and street robberies etc.), whilst others are the result of external factors that cause individuals to become aggressive and violent spontaneously, such as being knocked into and/or having a drink spilt over them etc. By understanding the differences between various types of violence it is possible to employ appropriate strategies for avoiding a physical confrontation, such as when to use de-escalation, and when it might be better to acquiesce to a demand e.g., handing a wallet over to an armed assailant engaged in a street robbery etc. There is a very real danger in trying to treat all physical threats as being one and the same and not understanding what is actually at play in a real-life act of aggression etc. and that different situations require different solutions; many of them not involving physical self-defense.

A large part of the self-protection equation is having good situational awareness, and whilst many in the security industry advocate for individuals to have a greater level of awareness when out in public etc. rarely do they inform as to what it is people should be aware of e.g., what constitutes a suspicious activity that could contain harmful intent etc. Although running without headphones does allow a person to be more aware and concentrate what is going on in the environment, if they don’t know what danger looks like then even if they spot I, they won’t identify it as such. Developing good situational awareness means educating ourselves as to what danger does look like, as well as what it doesn’t i.e., we don’t want to be responding to false alarms etc. The articles contained in the section look at informing and teaching the reader about different types of violence and how incidents can be avoided and dealt with using non-physical solutions. By developing self-protection skills and not relying on physical self-defense techniques, means that a person has more tools in their toolbox for dealing with aggressive and potentially violent events.