Over quarantine, I hopped on the bandwagon and watched Netflix’s Tiger King, which was a rollercoaster-like experience. However, this led me down the rabbit hole of true crime documentaries, and later on podcasts. True crime includes all nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genres where the author intensely discusses an actual crime and the details of the people involved. Although most of the crimes covered by true crime are high-profile murders and serial killers, true crime also covers different types of corruption scandals.
Through watching and listening to true crime stories, I notice that there were some lessons to learn from true crime cases that will help keep people safe. Here are a few tips that could help keep us safe from the dangerous world around us.
- Sharing Your Location with Someone You Trust
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Sharing your location with someone you trust ensures that someone knows where you are in case of an emergency. I know that on iPhones, the app Find My Friends allows you to share your location with the contacts that you choose. This could potentially allow a trusted friend or family member to monitor your journey when traveling alone.
- Set Up Your Phone’s Emergency SOS Settings
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This is another iPhone hack that allows you to easily call your emergency contact and 911 even from a locked phone. In your phone settings, the Emergency SOS section allows you to customize your emergency contacts and SOS preferences. Once you set up these settings, you can make an emergency call by pressing and keeping the side button or the volume button. Additionally, this setting can be found on Apple watches!
- Don’t Accept Drinks/Food/Pills From People
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Unfortunately, many true crime cases begin with the victim being drugged through something they received like drinks and food. Although getting offered free drinks, food, and other items sound great, restricting yourself to only accepting things from people you know and trust could help keep you safe.
- Keeping Your Doors Locked
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This tip may seem a little self-explanatory. However, an important tip I’ve gathered from true crime stories is the importance of keeping your doors locked. Whether it is the doors to your home or your car, keeping your doors locked helps prevent unwanted individuals from following into your spaces. There are also specific tools and devices that you can buy that add additional protective locks to doors.
- Taking Self-Defense/Kickboxing Classes
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Self-defense and kickboxing classes help you be able to defend yourself in case of emergency. Self-defense classes typically teach self-defense techniques and the recommended behavior when under a threat of violence. Outside of traditional self-defense classes, workout classes like kickboxing, karate, and jiu-jitsu can help build skills that can also be used for self-defense purposes.
In the scary world that we currently live in, it is very important to remain vigilant when it comes to personal safety.
If you’re interested in true crime content, Netflix and Hulu have a plethora of true crime documentaries with stories ranging from murder mysteries to historic moments in the crime world.
On the other hand, there is also a large number of true crime podcasts. I personally recommend the following podcasts found on both Apple Podcasts and Spotify: Crime after Crime, Killer Instinct, and Crime Junkie podcasts.