One Less Victim
Doug Setter
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2005 Trafford
ISBN: 1412033969

A Personal Guide to victim prevention.

Take charge of your own personal safety. For anyone threatened by bullies, thugs, thieves, robbers, swindlers, & a host of other predatory criminals, this book is for you.

Since his days as a 98lb teenager , Doug Setter has escaped beatings, robberies & even an attempted sexual assault. In One Less Victim he intends to arm the reader with the knowledge of both victim (what-did-I-do-wrong?) & criminal (can-I-get-away-with-this?) mindsets, as well as how to get the upper hand & keep your health, wealth & sense of humor.

Who is most vulnereable to theft, assault or robbery? Is it seniors, college women, minorities, or young adult males? Does a medical doctor have a higher risk for violent attacks than a sales manager? What makes a school or a daycare center a high risk for bullying & theft?

In One Less Victim, Doug Setter describe how some people unknowingly are drawn toward people, places & situations that result in bad things happening to them. Like any bad habit, victimization often just gets worse.

In order to change crime victim habits, it is important to change one's lifestyle. Doug Setter sets out to explain this in The Chosen Few: Blame Throwing & Crime Victim Traits. Then he maps out our Innocent Mistakes & our Not-So-Innocent Mistakes. Our Constitution gives us rights, not immunity.

Let's step back for a moment & look at our Early Conditioning & Chosen Culture, before bringing on The Players: the Criminal Training Camp; Bullies; Child Predators; Robbers/Muggers; Burglars; Domestic Batterers; Rapists, & Addicts. Now thine enemies!

Now we're ready for Games & Tactics: The Criminal's Process; Baited Traps; Scams, & Red Flags-Early Warning. Dog eat dog & bottom feeders.

Let's go to The Playing Field: Neighborhoods; Child Care; Schools; College & University; Work, & Public Places. It's still a dangerous world out there, even if you're a pacifist.

& now on to Winning: Serving Justice; Post Trauma; Biochemistry Change, & Training & Prevention. Being prepared isn't only for Boy Scouts.

Reading One Less Victim brought back a lot of “stuff” from my big city decades. Things I still practise no matter where I now roam, although the cougars, coyotes & bears run off when I yell at them & wave a big stick. In the cities, the predators were of the human variety, & tended not to run away, especially as most of them were male, & had the age-old assumption that just because I was female, I was easy prey. What they didn't know was I'd survived a childhood of being the youngest & the only girl in a litter of boys. They taught me well, whether I was fighting with them at home, or walking the London streets with them.

So I was pleased when I picked up Doug Setter's no-nonsense pocket book. He tells it like it is. No flowery or foul language. Just the facts, information, anecdotes & advice he's gleaned along the way as a Vancouver newspaper crime columnist, a self-defense master, a welter weight kick-boxer, & an infantry sergeant for United Nations peacekeeping operations.

Do you know danger signals? Or have you been lulled into a sense of security because ‘it’ has never happened to anyone you know? Life's a game of roulette, & one of these days, the ball's going to bounce on you. When it does, what are you going to do? Doug Setter's One Less Victim deals with Denial.

If you are a city-dweller, no matter how new to it, or how seasoned you think you are, then One Less Victim will show you how to WAKE UP, & walk through the cement jungle with greater care! “Fighting skill is not the same as self-defense. All of the eye-poking, kicking and martial arts moves are little help to people who keep walking, unaware into danger.” (P.1)

If you know someone who's going to live in a new city or neighborhood, do them a favor & give them a copy of One Less Victim.
If you know someone who's going to college or a new school, pack a copy of One Less Victim in their bag.
If you know someone is getting old & living alone, get a copy of One Less Victim, & read it with them. Because sooner or later, you or they are going to face any one of the situations given, & what you've learnt from this slim volume could save your bacon, not to mention your money, your sanity & your health.
(04/10/05)

Rebecca