Introduction

Much work has been done in the area of facility security for educational institutions post the incidents at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University, and Sandy Hook Elementary School, and for good reason. There have been over 30 attacks at U.S. schools in the last 10 years resulting in well over 300 deaths. Security practitioners have worked hard to produce and distribute best practices for schools in an effort to reduce the risk of violence. But what has been done to keep our student, teachers, and administrators safe when they leave the school on school business? Not much.

Safe Travel

Every year, parents send their children off to study abroad or to spend a few weeks in the summer with a host college/family in an effort to gain valuable international experience. Teachers attend conferences all the time for the purpose of overall personal development and to give as well as receive new techniques to better reach their students. The fact is both do so with very little, if any, safety preparation. Safe travel doesn’t just happen. As with everything else in business and in life, preparations play a big role in determining the outcome. The key to safe travel is to think about security from the start. It must be a part of your travel strategy. Planning is very important because it gives direction for an expected outcome. Note the use of the word planning and not plans. Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” He wasn't saying that plans are of no value. It's the process of planning that is most important. Planning is where one considers the difficulties and challenges and devises ways to mitigate them. Most plan for safe travel by simply hoping all goes well. Planning involves the steps taken to ensure all goes well. Remember, the primary goal is to reduce the opportunity for crime to occur by avoiding risk. To do this, planning is necessary.

Crime prevention is for everyone. Teachers, students, and administrators would do well to think about prevention of risks and safety when traveling. When motivation, opportunity, and desire come together, crime is nearly unavoidable. To reduce the possibility of this happening, one of the three must be eliminated. Opportunity (dark alley) and motivation (ravenous wolf) are very difficult to eliminate. However, desire (sitting duck) can be controlled, eliminating the potential for crime through education. Educate the duck to avoid the dark alley where the ravenous wolf waits. Control crime through education.

Top Eight Steps

The following eight steps are not all an individual should do in order to close the window of opportunity for crime, but it is designed to give you a clearer picture of what safe travel looks like:

1. Teachers and students both need city- or country-specific travel briefs that lay out the country and city threat levels, identifying the type of security threats that have occurred in the past in those locations and noting whether the dates of travel will hold any significance in the destination country or city that could affect threat conditions. This is a standard procedure for missionaries who travel to render aid, politicians, military personnel, as well as others, and should be for you too.
If the threat level warrants it, one should arrange to have a driver and secure ground transportation meet them on arrival. Your name should never be placed on a card and held up for everyone to see. Avoid this tactic altogether. Doing so gives criminals the opportunity to duplicate the card and pose as a driver, which can be the prelude to robbery, rape, kidnapping, and murder. Instead, there should be a secure way for the driver to be identified by the traveling employee. For example, the traveler can get the driver’s name and a picture of him/her in advance. Even better, arrange for the hotel shuttle to pick you up. Both the driver’s identification and the vehicle’s markings will have the hotel’s identification on them.
Travelers should also register with the embassy or consulate’s office in the country of their destination so that they can be contacted in the event of an emergency. This should be done on a country-by-country basis as some have a propensity to be corrupt.
As part of the planning process, you should know how various contingencies should be handled. If your flight is late, how do you contact your host or the driver? If you get sick, have an accident, face a natural disaster, or other problem, what do you do? Knowing what to do when the unexpected happens reduces risk when traveling.

2. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) reports that between 2004 and 2008 more than 1 in 10 property crimes took place in parking lots or garages.¹ Gary R. Cook, P.E., publisher of Security Design Newsletter, states that roughly 80% of the criminal acts at shopping centers, strip malls, and businesses occur in parking lots.² The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia has stated that “a quick review of reported cases reveals that Wal-Mart parking lots are a virtual magnet for crime” (due to it being a 24-h operation with little, if any, security).³ In 2007, the East Bay Express published an article called “Lots of Trouble” that reviewed the explosion of crime in parking lots the previous summer in San Francisco Bay Area, reporting numerous instances of assault.⁴
Suffice it to say that parking lots and garages by their very nature and poor design provide opportunity for all sorts of crime to occur and many times we are left with very few options and nearly forced to use them.
The following are a few things to consider when parking in lots or garages:

a. Consider hotel transportation and valet parking when available. It’s both convenient and safer. Also, know that mall security will provide escorts from and to vehicles if requested.

b. With parking garages, the key is visibility. High visibility from within and outside the facility can greatly reduce safety risks. It is important to establish lines of sight between exits and parking areas. For example, if a pedestrian walks down the aisle and reaches a point where he/she must turn toward an elevator or stairway, the person should be able to see both the elevator/stairs and the vehicle from that point. Avoid placing yourself in any other position.

c. Lobbies leading to elevators should have as much glass as possible and, if possible, should face a public area, such as a street, so that you are visible from the outside. Glass elevator shafts and cabs are great because they allow others to see who’s in the elevator, minimizing the risk of attack.

d. The same need for visibility holds true for stairways. In the past, fire codes required stairways to be entirely enclosed in masonry. Today, codes permit as much glass as possible on the exterior side. Some codes now permit completely open stairs on the outside of the building, enhancing visibility. If the stairway is enclosed, use caution.

e. It is best to park in lots/garages that provide spaces at 90° angles because it results in driving aisles that are up to 26 ft wide, which allows parkers to walk to and from their vehicles without walking too close to the parked cars. Cars parked at a 45° angle have the narrowest aisles at approximately 12 ft. Once parked, the pedestrian should always walk down the center of the aisles (rather than near the vehicles where one could be pulled between the vehicles and assaulted) moving only for vehicular traffic.

3. There are two aspects to hotel safety and security: what the hotel security procedures are, and what the guest should do. Most would not view hotel check-in as a security issue, but I assure you, it is. During the check-in process, valuable information is exchanged between the hotel clerk and the guest. “Hi, I’m Mrs. Brown and I have a reservation for a three night stay here at your hotel.” Or, “Mrs. Brown, here is your key to room #345 located on the third floor. Enjoy your stay with us!” This very professional conversation produces very important information. This information in the hands of the wrong person could be quite problematic. Check-in conversation should be as private as possible and not include those milling around in the lobby area. Armed with your name, room number, and length of stay, anyone can pose as an employee of the hotel, knock on your door using your name which will give you a (false) sense of security, and cause you to open the door to a complete stranger.
All people should be vigilant when traveling alone in a foreign country, but since statistically women are at higher risk, included below are some tips designed specifically for females. In selecting lodging, one should choose hotels with a reputation for both safety and security. Females should also look for hotels considered safest for women. For example, many hotels have a designated “women only” floor which could reduce the likelihood of an attacker lurking outside or following a woman to her room. It would be wise to request a room between the second and seventh floor. Individual floors in most buildings are about 12 ft high and many cities have fire trucks with 100-ft. ladders. The 100-ft ladder, the largest in most cities, should be able to get to or near the top of an eight-story building. Rooms above the seventh floor should be avoided because fire ladders may not be able to reach rooms that are higher than that. Street level is not good because it provides easy access for criminals.
Female travelers should stipulate that rooms not be at the end of the hallway where they will be more isolated and vulnerable; they should also request that the room not be across any stairways, because a person could hide in the stairway awaiting for an opportunity to force their way in from behind as the guest enters the room.
Females should accept the service of the bellman. They should wait at the door while the bellman deposits the luggage and walks around the room turning on the lights. When women check into a room unescorted, they should follow the 15-second rule: After looking right and left for anyone who may be lurking in the hall, open the door and lodge the suitcase against the open door. Now, within 15 seconds, turn on all the lights, look behind the drapes and shower curtain, and give a quick kick beneath the bed to determine whether the bed sits on a pedestal (eliminating the possibility of someone hiding underneath). This secures the room. Afterward, quickly close and double lock the door and use the top latch as well. Creating an extra level of security is important because hotel locks are far from unassailable. It is easy for staff to make copies of keys and it has been known, though not often, for one key to fit all doors!
Female travelers may also want to pack a men’s shirt or tie or some other article of clothing distinctively male. These items can be spread around the room to give housekeeping the impression that a male is around. This will also help when ordering room service—a situation which exposes female travelers to a degree of risk because they are letting strangers, usually male, into the room. Here’s how a women can make room service less risky: With male clothes or other items in plain view, she should run the shower before the delivery person knocks on the door. She should then speak to the shower door saying, “food’s here” (or something like that) loud enough to be heard on the other side of the hotel room door. Room service will assume there is more than one person in the room. The woman in the room should have a pen in hand and a place cleared for the waiter to place the food. As she opens the door, she should motion for the waiter to step in, and while standing against the open door (which offers an escape path if a threat arises), she can motion for the waiter to set down the food, return, and step outside at which point she can sign the bill, then close and lock the door.

4. Body posture and eye contact are big! The likely criminal targets are men and particularly women who appear unaware or unfamiliar with their surroundings, and unlikely to fight back. Many people are unaware that they are sending “victim signals” to predators. We’ve all walked by people and noticed (or didn’t notice because we were the one sending the signals) people who refuse to make eye contact. They are rigid or robotic in their walk, walking faster or slower than their normal pace, which affects their gait or normal stride. As you approach them, one can notice them looking straight ahead, as if looking at the person approaching would be offensive. Or, they will become busy with their phone, hands, bag, etc., or even worse, just look down. Predators look for this submissive behavior and gravitate toward it. Instead, one should walk at his or her normal pace with his or her head up. As the individual approaches, note their eye contact. If there is none, feel free to walk by without speaking. However, if there is eye contact, acknowledge them. This should be done with a very confident “hello!” The last thing a predator wants is a confident person because they assume that the confident person will fight to protect their property. This isn’t always true, nor am I telling you to fight back. What I am saying is the predator desires an easy target and by walking with confidence, making eye contact, and speaking to him/her, it will more than likely cause him/her to choose another target.

5. Transportation can be a bit problematic as well. As previously stated, hotel transportation is preferred but may not always be available. Other options include renting a vehicle or arranging transportation through a colleague or friend. Busses and trains may not work well if you are not familiar with the area. That said, taxicabs have become the preferred mode of transportation while traveling on business.
I once loaned a textbook to a student who left the book in the back of a cab. Because my name and number were stamped in the book, the cab driver was kind enough to call and return my book to me. I once found a fifty-dollar bill (which I turned over to the driver) in the back of a cab as I was getting a ride to the airport.
How often does this happen? How often do people leave items in cabs? Well, it turns out that it happens quite often. So often that, for example, in New York City, nycitycab.com has a page on their website dedicated to lost items. Cell phones, wallets, keys, purses, and more are left in cabs daily. In 1999, the Los Angeles Times reported that “Musician Yo-Yo Ma forgot his $2.5-million, 266-year-old cello in the trunk of a taxi Saturday, but police tracked it down at a garage in Queens in time for his evening concert.”⁵
This issue creates a huge opportunity for one of the, if not the fastest, growing crimes on the planet: identity theft. The United States Department of Justice states, “to victims of identity theft and fraud, the task of correcting incorrect information about their financial or personal status, and trying to restore their good names and reputations, may seem as daunting as trying to solve a puzzle in which some of the pieces are missing and other pieces no longer fit as they once did. Unfortunately, the damage that criminals do in stealing another person's identity and using it to commit fraud often takes far longer to undo than it took the criminal to commit the crimes.”⁶ It’s important that you inspect the passenger area of the taxi cab, bus, train, or any other mode of transportation as you enter it, but more important, as you exit, to ensure personal items are not left behind.

6. Looking like a tourist can certainly ruin your travel plans. It’s important to blend in with the locals as much as possible. Nothing screams “I’m a tourist” more than watching a person standing on the corner looking up at a skyscraper commenting on its size or even unfolding a map with a confused look on their face. Every predator will know you’re prey. If you’re not sure where you are, stop inside a store, any store, and browse just long enough for you to gather your thoughts and develop a plan of action.
For the international traveler, it’s wise to dress conservatively. A modest appearance will be necessary in countries with strong religious views. Avoid flashy jewelry and clothing with religious or military symbols. Also, be aware that common western hand gestures like the “thumbs up” and the way we in the west call or summon one another by waving our index finger back and forth are seen as both obscene and offensive.

7. Issues, problems, and emergencies can arise and a proper response to each is necessary. Many either use the terms interchangeably or confuse the three, which could create a worse situation. If you mistake a problem for an emergency, you will overplay the situation causing panic and alarm when it is totally unnecessary. If you underestimate an emergency and treat it as if it were an issue, you could create a disaster. First things first, let’s define these three terms:

a. An issue is an unplanned distraction.

b. A problem is the cause of one or more issues.

c. An emergency is an unresolved problem(s) now requiring immediate action.

Based on the above definitions, an incident is something that needs to be resolved before it becomes a problem or an emergency. This can be either a permanent or a temporary fix. An example of an incident would be a power loss at your hotel which causes a disruption in the normalcy of your morning. Now, because the issue does not affect your day-to-day business, by definition, you do not have a problem. It becomes an incident only when the power outage extends into the hours, affecting your work, comfort, and convenience.
A problem is not an issue. An issue can become a problem, especially if there is a high possibility that the issue might happen again. In the case of a power outage, when the outage extends into the hours in which you would be relaxing or working in your room, there is a problem. This is a problem because if the situation is not resolved, this can become an emergency.
An emergency is far from being a problem and farther from being an issue. An emergency is a serious and often dangerous situation requiring immediate attention. In keeping with the current example, the power outage reaches emergency status when the safety of the guests is compromised. As a result of the outage, there’s no access control and a woman could be attacked in her room. Here, immediate attention is needed. Yes, each can happen independent of the other, but my point is that one should not allow a situation to escalate to the next level if it can be avoided.

8. Trust your instincts. Don’t take unnecessary chances, lock your car, lock your home or apartment, don’t make it easy for criminals, reduce opportunity, and you will not be a victim.