The concept behind the old saying "Who is watching the watchers?" applies in spades to property crime. "What is protecting the protection?" Until this critical issue is addressed, then the statement that "locks only keep honest people" applies. That is because an honest person will look at a lock and see a barrier, a criminal will look and see something that he has to get around. Unfortunately, most of what is around the locks/protections can be breached with ease, which totally undermines the effectiveness of the lock. Despite the fact that thieves may not use violence on people, that doesn't mean they are not deeply involved in the criminal mindset and therefore willing to use whatever force is necessary. And that means they don't care how much damage they cause getting what they want. It makes perfect sense to them to bypass a lock by kicking the door in, thereby causing the frame to collapse or to smash a car window to get to something. The havoc they will wreck will cost you hundreds of dollars to repair on top of whatever else they will have taken. Unfortunately, often the amount of money the burglar will get for the object he stole is only fractional to the costs of repair for the damage he caused getting to the item. It is critical that you have an understanding of how thieves operate and why an "onion" approach is necessary. Layers of protection, rather than just one level. Otherwise the burglar is going to quickly and easily bypass your security measures, or just blast through them.

Provided by Dianna Gordon MacYoung at http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/propertycrime.html