Surveillance

We are no longer safe in our homes. Burglars no longer steal your belongings but have turned into murderers and rapist who rape and kill for the joy of it. Door grilles and padlocks no longer keep you save. These group of people can easily infiltrate these features and enter into your home. What do we do??

HELP!

What do we do about security?

While designing a building, as students, we were taught to take note of two line of defense. One is the surrounding site around the building and the second will be the active system on the building itself.

The first line of defense is the perimeter fencing. When an area is fenced up, it gives the impression to "back-off". This physical barrier is to discourage people from entering the area within.

Hence, we have the gated community housing concept. It's not to protect the community from the outsiders but just to discourage outsiders from entering that community.

Other examples would be the castle surrounded with formidable sky-high walls and a moat too. Nowadays, within a large gated community, homeowners can just literally draw line to indicate their individual territory without having fences (since the giant fence is around the neighbourhood already). There is so many ways to indicate the perimeter.
Animals urinate to leave their scent to mark their territory and to ward off other intruders. But humans cannot do that act. We are humans. We still use fencing: brickwall fences to chain-link fences.
The next stage will be the area in between the boundary to the building known as the garden, driveway, car porch and many more.

Further online research will show you some security company will advice on keeping your garden and lawn minimal or low to avoid intruders to hide.

I remember my lecturer saying that visual surveillance is the best. Therefore, these areas have to be well lighted to allow your neighbours to look through to your gardens, just in case a weird man is lurking around.

Naturally, people do associate dark places with crimes and evil. People do tend to do wrong things when they think no one is watching them. That's why you have hidden camera's tapping funny acts done by people when they think no one is watching.

The second line of defense is the natuarally the actives systems of home alarm system. What more can I say about that?

Surveillance
Since the electricity tariff was increased, at night, my neighbourhood is pitch dark. The street lighting doesn't work. Some neighbours no longer switch on their lights at their car porch to safe a buck or two. Hence, it gets pretty eerie and dark out there.

Therefore, if I come home late, I always look around the car porch to see if anyone is lurking in the shadows. Many times, people happily drive into their car porch, thinking they are safe within their own compound but a desperate man could be waiting inside your compound for you with a cleaver or parang.
The point is, why save money on the lighting when you don't create enough lighted place to ward-off potential break-ins. I am so happy when finally my neighbours move into the house beside mine.

Before this, it was dark and empty. Now these neighbours have installed 3 fluorescent lamps in their car porch and their house brightens the area considerably at night. Because of this, I start to notice that the lamp in my car porch looks rather dim. Time to change lights! :P