The safety of your family and property is undoubtedly one of your most important daily concerns: as it should be! Too many of us simply waltz through the day assuming that because we live in a fairly safe city or town or because we also were careful to select a home in a Norman Rockwell-type neighborhood or gated community that we could never be hit by home invasion crimes. But this kind of thinking is unwise and unrealistic: the truth is crime happens EVERYWHERE and does not discriminate. The bad economic climate has been marked by a significant spike in home invasion crimes according to the latest FBI statistics.

Here are some of the basic steps every homeowner should take to ensure their family's safety.

Protect Your Family:

Most home invasion burglaries or robberies are crimes of opportunity; so make it hard for a potential thief to enter in the first place.

• Install an alarm system: Although alarms do not guarantee safety, they can act as an effective deterrent because loud noise attracts attention. And attention is the last thing a burglar wants.

• Pay attention to your exterior doors: If your doors are made from hollow wood, it doesn't take much exertion for a thief to break it down. Have solid metal doors with deadbolts installed and make sure to keep the bolt securely in place even when your family is home; and never leave windows open during the day when the family is away: a huge percentage of home invasions take place in broad daylight.

• Motion-sensitive lighting: Again, a burglar will avoid detection at all costs. Installing motion-sensitive lighting around your garage door area, front door, back door, on the corners of your house and even on fencing around the perimeter of your property will go a long way toward preventing crimes of opportunity.

Protect Your Belongings:

Crime fighting organizations maintain that a burglar who breaks into your home will only take about 6 minutes to look around and assess what can be easily taken. This window of time is his "comfort zone"… if he needs to take longer he risks getting caught. The harder you can make it for a criminal to take your stuff, the better. Home safes are therefore ideal tools for safeguarding the types of items burglars look for first: money, jewelry, watches, and guns that they can quickly cash in on. Out of sight: out of mind; and a safe takes away the "crime of opportunity" factor altogether.

Taking the above steps is like an insurance policy against your family being victimized: there are never any absolute guarantees, but you'll definitely sleep better at night. Crime happens to the best of people every day: protect your family first and then protect your belongings by investing in home safes.