Anything but absurd.smectym wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 11:18 pmThese are solid pointers. Also, I know it sounds absurd, but walk tall and “with purpose,” eyes scanning the surroundings, swinging the arms a bit with fists lightly clenched. I’ve read this since, but before I ever read it, living in a tough district in Brooklyn a casual friend took me aside and said I was dressing too “straight” (he meant, what we would consider today an impoverished version of “business casual”), and walking in a timid posture, eyes cast down: these “cues” made me a target.jayjayc wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 10:55 pm OP, be vigilant. Be the 1 person on the street whose eyes aren't glued to their phone. This alone should make you a less likely target. Designate someone else in your group to use their phone to navigate.
While your head is kept on a swivel, you'll have the amazing benefit of soaking in the sights and people.
If you plan to be out at night, get a powerful yet pocketable flashlight. It's another signal to predators that you're aware and not an easy target.
This was post my having been robbed on the street.
I once read of a study where they tested photos (or film clips) of pedestrians to a group of prisoners (who had been incarcerated for street crimes). They were absolutely clear about who they would target. I don't remember all of it - but it was precisely what you say - they don't target people who are alert and look like they would be trouble.
(To be clear, I don't every advocate fighting someone over a possession. You don't know what stimulants the perpetrator might be using which will influence their judgement or restraint, or how desperate they might be, or what weapons they might be carrying. A desperate (man, almost always) will kill. Your camera, wallet or phone is not worth that)
If you watch chimpanzees (who will commit homicide, although usually of chimps outside their tribal group) then there's a quite well defined social hierarchy among the males (much subtler among females, but also present) in a grouping. Who walks how, who gives way, who keeps their eyes down. With new younger males, it breaks down, until the dominant males enforce it again (cue lots of screaming and fighting, not usually too severe *within* a tribal group).
That's like an exaggerated view of how humans behave. The same is true in a schoolyard, and, I imagine, a prison. A military unit enforces it "salute the rank, not the man".
I have read it's similar in areas of social deprivation & poverty. A quite elaborate hierarchy of how you walk, keep your eyes down, who has social status and power etc. In the current London form it extends to entirely invisible barriers re "my Manor" (nowadays the kids say "my End") -- you can be killed for wandering into the territory of another group or gang.
Anthropologists seem to be saying that violence occurs, among primates, in "liminal spaces". I.e. it is the territorial boundaries between groups that have the greatest incidence of violence. In our context, those anonymous urban spaces that nobody owns.
I once lived on the same street as a family of very old fashioned London crime lords (successors to the Krays). I was unaware of this, and shortly after I bought the flat a cabbie said to me "I don't imagine you have too much trouble around here, then". It was like a protected little oasis from street crime & break-ins. Criminals didn't trespass on "their Manor".