The Survival
Files Blog

Victims of violent crime often say that it seemed as if it came out of nowhere. The fact is that’s hardly ever true, there will have been plenty of warning, and plenty of opportunity to recognize and evaluate the danger signs in advance, but sadly most of the time the victim didn’t see them, ignored them, or just didn’t recognize their significance.
There is a common saying among personal safety teachers: “What you think you know will kill you”. Meaning that familiarity often blinds us to the significance of the signals of pending danger. What you “think” you know about violent crime could blind you to the importance of the warning signs. In the R.E.A.C.T System we talk about ‘Recognising the Threat’, and there are a set of simple and obvious stages to help you do this. These stages are inherent in the development of a violent crime. If you are aware of this process you will see that they are predictable and quite recognizable. Understanding these stages will enable you to spot and react to danger in advance.
There has to be a build-up to an act of violence. Criminals are not generally speaking sitting in front of the TV with a nice cup of coffee and a jam doughnut then suddenly leaping up and attacking someone. As human beings the act of actually committing a violent crime requires us to go through a set process that takes time to develop. Even the most violent of people are not normally capable of instantaneously becoming violent; they need time to go through a set of recognizable physiological and psychological changes in order to attack someone physically. Only in cases of severe and extreme mental instability, as found on a mental ward, will a person be capable of erupting instantly into violence.
Any person who is preparing to attack you physically will give off certain signals. Their body will literally betray their intent. People who have been assaulted often say, “I knew there was something wrong but I just couldn’t put my finger on it”. As I said earlier, the victim didn’t see the signs, ignored them, or just didn’t recognize their significance. The first letter in the REACT System is R for Recognise. The following five basic stages will help you to do this.

INTENT
The decision has been made to commit violence in order to obtain a goal. Often a person who has decided to launch a physical assault will either look for a reason or excuse to attack, or will try and hide their intentions until they are ready. Fortunately, despite the exterior appearances, many times there is enough nonverbal communication coming from an attacker to warn you that something is wrong. People have to undergo certain physiological changes for the body to be ready to attack or defend. These are reflected in a person’s body language. While they can be very subtle, they are recognizable to an observer, either consciously or unconsciously. Trust your gut instinct. Often your subconscious recognises the physiological danger signals being displayed. Even if a situation looks normal but your alarm bells go off, do not ignore it, start to look for the next two stages developing before it’s too late. Knowing and understanding this process serves as an early warning system for the recognition of the danger signs. Your attacker’s body will tell you he’s about to attack, even if the words are calm and normal.

INTERVIEW
Remember the assailant’s personal safety is a critical factor in deciding whether or not he attacks you. The ‘interview’ is where the decision of whether or not he is safe to attack is being considered. If for one moment the criminal thought an attack would be unsuccessful they will almost certainly move on and seek easier prey. “Will I succeed?” That is a major incentive for what any one of us decides to do or not do. The ‘interview’ is the test, and this is one interview you definitely want to fail. By failing, the assailant will decide that he cannot successfully, or easily, attack you. There are four basic types of interviews.

Standard
This is the most common. The approach is often under the guise of an innocent request, i.e. needing information, a light or the time. This is a distraction. While they are talking, they are not only getting in position to attack, but checking your awareness of what they are doing and your commitment to defending yourself.

Hot
A sudden verbal outburst. You are minding your own business one minute, and the next you have a threatening, obscenity screaming person in your face. The success of this strategy relies on you not being accustomed to dealing with extreme emotional and verbal abuse and reacting in a stunned and confused manner.

Escalating
Unlike the hot interview, which starts out immediately hostile, an escalating interview starts out normally, but it rapidly turns hostile. The person is testing your boundaries by escalating offensive behaviour. The more they get away with, the more the behaviour escalates and becomes more and more extreme until finally they attack. This is a very common interview technique for date rapists. It is also common with groups of loitering youths looking for trouble.

Silent
A silent interview is when the street predators put themselves in a position to observe you. They may never speak until the attack, but they have been watching and observing you for some time. They may position themselves out of sight in order to follow you. Or they may make their presence known and decide to attack if you show any signs of fear.

POSITIONING
This is the criminal putting himself in a place where he can successfully attack you. Typical street robbers are cowards and do not want to fight you; they want to overwhelm you with intimidation and fear. To accomplish this, they have to put themselves into a position where they can do it quickly and effectively. Positioning is the final proof that someone is trying to put themselves into a place from which to attack, and therefore removes all doubt that the situation is innocent. You will seldom, if ever, be mugged or raped in the middle of a crowd. Therefore a key point of all positioning is what we call the fringe areas. A fringe area is where you could be close to people, but out of range of immediate help. You won’t be robbed in the middle of a busy shopping centre, but could be in the car park, toilets, at the ATM machine or the stairwells. All these should be considered potential positioning danger areas. Even a separate room in a crowded house can constitute a fringe area, as many women who have been raped at a party will testify. There are three basic types of positioning for a signal assailant.

Closing
The most basic form of positioning is simply walking up to the victim. The closer you allow a criminal to get, the greater their ability to overwhelm and control you.

Trapping
This is the second most basic form of positioning and the most common. He/she approaches you from a direction that traps you between himself and a large object, like a car or wall etc. This also entails putting themselves between you and an escape route.

Surprise
This is your classic ambush. The assailants position themselves in places where you can’t see them, or certainly not until the last moment. From this position, they can easily step out and attack. Once you know these types of locations, this kind of positioning is relatively easy to foil.

ATTACK
If the first three stages have been achieved, there is no reason for the street predators not to use violence to get what they want from you. Many robberies and rapes are committed with the simple threat of, or just a display of, violence. A violent, verbal outburst will not physically harm the victim, but clearly indicates that unless he or she cooperates, the victim will be hurt. Weapons can be displayed to convince a victim to cooperate. Other attacks are no more than brutal and outright physical assaults. Such attacks can come both with and without warning. At its most extreme, it means the criminal simply walking up to someone with a gun and pulling the trigger. Unfortunately, there is no way to determine which one you will encounter. An attack can turn from one type to another in a heartbeat. What was just a verbal threat a second ago, can explode into deadly violence.

AFTERMATH
This is how the predator feels about what they have done. In the aftermath of mugging someone, the street robber could decide on a whim, to beat, stab or shoot you despite the fact that you have cooperated fully and offered no resistance. Of all the aftermath reactions, one of the most consistently dangerous occurs among rapists. If the rapist feels that the rape was not as satisfying as they hoped it would be, extreme violence often occurs. It is a fact a large percentage of women who have been raped are seriously harmed by the rapists after the actual sexual assault. This puts paid to the ‘lay back and think of England’ theory. In any circumstance, until the assailant is completely out of your sight, you are still at risk of the aftermath, even though you have been totally cooperative. The unpredictability of the criminal’s reaction is another reason why it is far easier to avoid violence than it is to try to extract yourself safely from the middle of it.
Knowing these five stages is a consistent guide by which you can assess the potential threat of a situation. The stages are inherent within crime and violence. The stages give you an external set of standards to check against someone’s behaviour. If the collective behaviour is present, you are, indeed, in danger and need to take steps to ensure your safety. You need to do this no matter what is being said, since actions almost always speak louder than words.
There is no one thing that will inform you that you are in danger. This is why the five stage checklist is so reliable. A single element might be misconstrued or explained away. However, you will never get the collective presence of all five accidentally.

DO
Remember that during the first three stages, you can prevent an attack without resorting to violence. It is at this stage that the aggressor is still deciding whether or not he can get away with an attack without endangering himself.

DON’T
Don’t attempt to contest the threat; rather try to foil it before he commits himself at the INTERVIEW AND POSITIONING stage.