The crime prevention institute trains police officers to teach Texans to protect themselves. Each year, as many as 1,500 officers attend a two-week course that touches on everything from locks and alarms to personal safety issues and rural crime prevention. Those officers then go out into Texas neighborhoods and can reach millions of people, said George Landry, director of the Institute of Criminal Justice studies at Southwest Texas State University, which includes the crime prevention institute. We were one of the first states to start investing money to teach people about crime prevention. Police can't do it alone.
People have to help themselves.
Twenty-five percent of Texans have carried a weapon, including chemical sprays, outside their house. And 34 percent have bought a firearm for protection. But that could be because men are trying to protect family members, UT's Warr said. Some disturbing results of the poll, Warr said, are those that show Texans going so far as to adjust their social behavior - not going out alone or at night, refusing to answer their door at home. Fifty-three percent of women have avoided going out at night, compared with 21 percent of men.