According to the FBI, between 2008 and 2009, the number of sworn officers in non-metropolitan areas dropped 5.3%. Cities fared a little better – they lost officers as well, but not as many.
Some may rationalize this reduction in law enforcement muscle by saying
that crime rates have fallen, and that’s partly true. But here is the
thing about crime rates – it only covers what is reported. So it really doesn’t
matter what the crime rate is when you get cornered in a parking garage.
Also, crime rates often exclude crimes committed by a person the victim
knows, sometimes intimately.
Regardless of the crime rate or the number of cops, what many people
don’t realize is that the primary obligation of law enforcement is to society
at large, not to individuals.
This means crime prevention and deterrence, and when those fail, to
investigate and try to solve them.
It is our opinion that having the murder, rape, or assault of a loved one
investigated should never be an option.
Instead, we believe that there are many, many things that you can do to
AVOID, DETER, and DEFUSE trouble before violence erupts.
And if violence happens despite your best attempts to avoid it, we seek to empower you with real-world self-defense skills and tools so that you can DEFEND yourself and your loved ones in intuitive, practical ways, and also, to ARTICULATE to law enforcement why you did what you had to do.
Together, these capture the five self-defense principles of our Practical
Personal Protection (P3) Philosophy, which we call ADDDA. It stands for:
AVOID: Personal Protection through avoidance of potential threats.
DETER: Personal Protection by discouraging being identified as a target.
DEFUSE: Personal Protection by de-escalating a heated situation.
DEFEND: Personal Protection through last-ditch use of self-defense skills
and tools.
ARTICULATE: Personal Protection by articulating the facts for law enforcement and the judicial system.